Lady of the Shield-Hand
by dir4133
Summary: Loena, Horse-Mistress of the Riddermark, is the heir to a destitute familial tie. The line of Baldor had been great once, and celebrated, but after generations of neglect, had fallen into nothingness. As the dark grows, and the power of Orthanc strengthens, Loena joins of the quest of the Ring for the sake of her name, and to protect land she so loves. No MS, 10th Walker
1. Prologue

Golden haired for a Golden Age, they had named her. Well fought and mother of fighters, they'd named her also. Maiden of Shields and swords and blood, they'd called her, gathering in the wake of her horses pounding hooves. Mother of the trees they felled and the streams they drank from, blessed as the sun that grew their food, warmed their cheeks, dried their clothes, banished the long fears of the night.

Bringer of peace, they'd alleged. They'd brought their steel to her as she'd passed as though she'd bless it, speeding as fast as she could against the horizon. The wind would catch in her hair and against her lips, she'd close her eyes against the cold, revelling in it. She'd feel her heart in her chest, it pushed against the confines of her rib cage. As though her heart longed for the pure air of the young country, as though her heart wanted to be as free as she.

Across the winding rivers and ever-plains, against the eye-coloured sky, against the great white frozen mountains to the south, and the deep green of the woods to the West. They would build homes here, they would gaze horses here. They would find the give in the rock and clear the land for crops, and they would turn the wild as the land they survived.

There were no more enemies in the land she rode. They had abandoned it to the might of the horses hooves. The warring was over, they had told her. The days of the King have come. These were days of felling trees and building houses, these were days for planting crops and breeding horses.

Ah, but still, she missed the wind in her hair when she wasn't riding. And she missed the weight of the steel in her hand when she was not fighting. The woman wanted to become a streak of gold against the grass, she wanted to ride into the sun, and disappear with it as the stars stole the sky.

She was the heat in the sun, the cry of the eagle as its shadow crossed against the ground. She was the sting of the wind off the mountains, the thunder of her kin as they stormed their enemy on horseback, screaming as they went. Wild people, golden people.

She breathed them, lived them; _as the sun rises_.


	2. Lady Ensign

From where she sat, Rohan spilled out across from her. It was a land of plains, where the grass grew high in the wet season; a great sprawl of red and green against the gold and blue of the sky. Rocky outcrops dusted the way like spilt snow, and the rolling hills swelled against the weathered earth. The day was warm, with barely a whisper of cloud. Manning the watch tower was no eorlingas' favourite pastime – there was no horse to ride, and no standard to bear.

But it was beautiful. And as Ensign of Mark, it was a responsibility that Loena, daughter of Leofwine, took seriously. Very little could motivate her to abandon her post.

She turned away, and faced south. Across the way, and beneath the dip of the White Mountain, a Horse breeder pushed his herd across the grass. He kept them in line with a long, fine stick, and walked on foot around them. They walked with him, unconcerned; dark flecks against the white behind them.

Loena had ridden hard at dawn, earlier that day. She'd been returning after a raid at the southern border two nights previously. She had come, racing up the steps to Meduseld, to see the king, and he had listened to her worries, and had seemed amiable to her pleas to increase the number of raids ordered. Better than that, he had gifted her a private audience. His horrid advisor, Gríma Wormtongue, had taken ill and had been attending the Houses of Healing for the day. Théoden had been distracted, it was true, and obviously exhausted, but he'd told her that he would consider her recommendations.

And it was the longest conversation she'd had with Théoden in months. Nay, years.

The settled feeling she'd felt in her chest when she'd first arrived in Edoras with her mother, so many years ago, had returned. She felt satiated, optimistic. As refreshed as she did by the cool winds off the mountains, that blew her golden hair across her face.

She left the south, and turned back to the north, sitting down to settle in. Rare was it that a traveller who visited did not come from the North; it was there that all roads led, and it was at the northern end of the city that Edoras's gates opened. She let her eyes glaze as the moment extended, nearly closing her eyes against the sleepy warmth of the sun.

These days, the eored riders came in and out of the city with an increasing regularity. So much so that Leona could distinguish them from hunting groups by sound alone. Hunting groups wore less armour, they spoke louder, laughed easier, and their horses were not so weathered. Loena could even usually place a few young noble's voices.

Loena let her mind drift, remembering her request, only a few months after she'd arrived in Edoras, to joint he king on a hunting trip. It had been presumptive – most hunts were by invitation only. But Loena had been inspired by the great stories of her house, and had been steeled by the encouragement of her mother.

_"I would accept your request," Théoden King had said, not unkindly. "But for your sex. Women are not to hunt."_

_Not to hunt! Loena had been taught how to pull a bow and arrow as well as any of the Nobles atop their steeds before her. She could work on her spear throwing, that was true, but she had no doubt that she was more proficient than the 14 year old lad sitting nervously on top of, presumably, his father's Friesian stallion. Even as she watched she saw him glance down at the horse with apprehension, swallowing and gathering the reins tightly in his hands._

_"My King," she's said, in a low voice, eyes flicking from his face to the face of his nephew behind him. Éomer was watching the exchange with curiosity. "I beg my house's attendance. I swear, by the Great Hunter, that I will be able to keep the pace."_

_"If Loena is to go, than I am too!" the king's niece cried from behind Loena. Loena had turned, and seen the young woman Éowyn, a few years her junior, with freckles across her nose, staring up at her uncle determinedly._

_Théoden had sighed, and rubbed his lower back. "I will not argue with you on this matter, Loena."_

_Loena had bitten her tongue and bowed her head. It was, after all, by the king's discretion that she was learning swordplay in Edoras at all._

_She'd watched the thunder of the Riddermark's storm as they'd raced from the cities gates with a shadow across her face. She'd spent the rest of the afternoon taking her anger out through her bow and arrow. She snarled with every draw, and grunting with every release. By the time the hunt had returned with pheasant and deer, she'd ruined the centre of the target, and had blistered her two fingers._

Looking back, she was surprised she'd been granted enough time with him for him to refuse her twice. Her blood line was significant, in truth; she was the blood of Baldor; Grandson of Eorl, the first rider of the Mark, and eldest son and heir of Brego. He-Who-Should-Have-Been-King. The Crown prince who had ridden off through the Paths of the Dead, and had never returned. He who, after just two generations of kings, had ended the line, and passed the deed onto his younger brother.

Baldor had been survived by a daughter, a maiden of the Shield hand, who they said was one of the first women to ride a horse like a man. Beornia, they'd called her, for the sword she'd wielded for her King-uncle. Beornia, the blood of Baldor, spirit of the Riddermark.

During the time of Beornia and her children, the blood of Baldor had been strong, and had been tied to the king with strong ties. But Baldor's legacy had been inherited by squanderers, and the line had lost its money and its influence. Loena had always thought that it was significant that Baldor's line had been almost exclusively women, and had always supposed that the husbands they'd chosen had spent the money erroneously.

She had no proof, of course.

Nevertheless, by the time of Loena's birth, almost all the prestige and notoriety of her line was gone.

Just enough power, in the end, however, for Bréa, Loena's mother, to make an appeal to the king. Enough prestige for the king to invest in them. Enough for them to be moved back to Edoras.

She flew open into a panic, jumping to her feet as something descended from the sky. It was huge, with massive, feathery grey wings batting against the air. It looked like one of the giant falcons the young men would use when they hunted. She was half convinced it had flown from her dreams into the sky.

It was flying as fast as an elvish arrow towards the ground, before pulling up in the last moment, and settling down upon the grasslands. Her eyes widened as she took in the scene; a giant eagle landing outside her city, with a small, man-shaped creature climbing off. He stood beside it for a second, and both were still. Then the great bird reared its head and spread its wings, air beating against the earth as it alighted into the air.

With just a few strokes of its massive wings, it alighted to the clouds, and barely a blink later, it was gone.

Loena nearly stumbled in her haste to get to the base of the outpost. She sprinted past the sentry guards, and then half-fell the rest of the way down, dress snaring on the rungs as she descended. Her quiver beat against her back, and her sword, a fine, balanced blade named _Gíed_, slammed against her hip as she turned on the last step. She pushed on, beelining for Edoras's open doors.

"Loena!"

The voice stopped her in her tracks. She swivelled on her heel, and bowed her head meekly at the sight of her Captain bearing down on her.

From the stairs in front of Meduseld, Éomer approached.

"Hail, Captain," she said to him nervously. She glanced over her shoulder quickly, though she knew that without the height of the watch tower, she had no hope in seeing the person the eagle had left upon their grasses.

"Daughter of Leofwine," Éomer greeted her by her father's name. "It is not like you to abandon your post."

"Aye," she agreed. "But this is a matter pressing enough to leave the guarding to the sentries alone." She glanced at Meduseld shining out behind him. "Perhaps I should consult the king—"

"Théoden has retired for the day," Éomer said shoulders rigid. Loena couldn't distinguish between the concern and worry on the tightness of his voice. "Is there anything I can do for you in his stead?"

Loena dismissed the fleeting disappointment, sparing a moment for wryly chastising herself for becoming hopeful about the king's ailing health. The eagle, and the person who had been riding it, pushed themselves steadily to the forefront of her mind.

"Ah," she said, nodding quickly. She found it hard to hold Éomer's eye for too long. He was intense, and solemn. Both he and his sister were renowned for their solemnity, their apparent coldness. He was a good captain, but he was an intimidating man. "I suppose you might. Some strange parcel has been delivered upon the doorstep of Edoras. A man, I think, arrived here as if from a dream, on the back of a bird. I intend to ride off to meet it."

Éomer's eyes widened, and then narrowed. "Did anyone else see it?"'

"I doubt it," Loena said, shaking her head. "The bird moved too quickly for the eye to follow, and it came to the earth far from these walls around us. I saw only because I was watching from so high."

"You believe this, creature, means us ill will?" Éomer guessed, and Loena took that as him agreeing to accompany her. Together they strode off automatically for the stables. It was a close distance, but too far to walk with any degree of haste.

"Oh, I have no idea," Loena said, though she did grasp at _Gíed's _hilt nervously. "But either way, an occurrence this strange should not be neglected."

"Undoubtedly," Éomer nodded. "You are right. We shall set off immediately."

The practiced ease of the Rohirrim preparing their horses to ride meant both Éomer and Loena were saddled moments later.

Snowbourne seemed to nicker in annoyance below her. The grey, dappled mare had been her companion as she'd ridden around the Westfold, hunting Orc with spear and sword. Snowbourne was a clever horse, bred in the foothills of the White Mountains. She was swift, faster than any who rode in Loena's company, and recovered quickly after hard riding. She was, however, not immune to the effects of exhaustion, and had likely been looking forward to resting after Loena's latest raid alongside the eored.

"Just a short trip, my girl," Loena whispered to her, patting along her neck. "You'll be back here soon."

Éomer led the way through the streets, seated comfortable upon a proud, bald face stallion. Loena and Snowbourne followed shortly behind him. Loena watched him as he rode, straight backed, shoulders relaxed. She blinked as he turned and smiled at her, the early-sun shining off his golden hair. She imagined Éomer then, before she could stop herself, as the kindly Lord as the hero in a love-story.

The latter thought made her blush, and she was glad for the chill of the wind to hide it.

They found themselves quickly out of Edoras, riding out free from the confines of the city. The man would have been impossible to see if Loena had not been looking for him; one irregular dark spot against the landscape.

As they approached Loena made out the small figure all the clearer. An old man, with a tall walking stick, a tall grey hat, and a grey cloak.

Her mother had sent her, for 10 years of her life each summer to Minas Tirith to learn to read amongst the rare texts housed in the royal libraries there. Minas Tirith was a strange memory to her now, she both recalled it with clarity, and yet could distinguish very little between each year that she had gone. She did remember that in her first year, the two well-mannered sons of the Steward had bowed to when she arrived. Her deepest impression of the city itself was its veined white stone that she'd trace with her fingers, and the smell of the dust and books in the dank rooms of the library.

Her clearest, and most treasured recollection was, however, the kindly old wizard who would talk to her for hours about dragons, trolls, and far off lands.

She recognised him now, and she spurred Snowbourne into a canter, overtaking Éomer, her face broken into a grin. "Gandalf!"

He had been standing, quite content, in the spot where the eagle had landed, and he raised his hand at the call of his name.

"You know this stranger?" Éomer asked her, bringing his steed in line with hers. He sounded surprised, and a little suspicious.

"I met him during my studies in Minas Tirith," Leona answered, feeling suddenly brazen, looking into Éomer's eyes and smiling. "He's a wizard, a Grey Pilgrim." Her grin broke out, childish and broad, as recollection stirred in the back of her mind. "He makes the most wonderful fireworks."

"Fireworks?" Éomer seemed lost.

"Great flowers of light that explode into the sky," Loena described, feeling nearly giddy, remembering their red and yellow light reflected in the white stone wash of Minas Tirith's walls.

"Sounds like magic, to me," Éomer said, sounding bemused.

Loena shrugged. "I don't doubt it."

Soon thereafter Loena slowed Snowbourne to a trot, and then stopped the young mare altogether. She leapt eagerly from the saddle and strode toward Gandalf. "The Grey Wizard! How many years has it been since I gazed upon your face? I swear I recall at our last meeting, that you promised to finish some odd tale about some hobbit and a merry band of dwarves."

"Loena, daughter of Leofwine and Horse-Mistress," Gandalf smiled, and when Loena was close, grasped her shoulder, his kind eyes finding hers. She beamed up at him. "I remember the promise, though I do swear I had good reason for not returning that summer."

"It is good to see you, old friend," she said, and the two embraced.

Once they'd broken apart, Gandalf took a proper look at her. "You have the same smile, but I see you have grown into a proper woman since our paths crossed last." A flicker of something like memory, or grief, flickered over his eyes as he gazed upon her face, but it was gone as quickly as it had come.

A polite cough called from behind them, and Loena turned quickly. "Gandalf the Grey, I introduce Éomer of Edoras, Third Marshal of the Riddermark."

"I've heard many interesting stories about the bravery of this day's Marshal," Gandalf said, bowing his hat toward Éomer. "Well met, son of Rohan."

"Well met, Wizard," Éomer nodded slowly in turn, eyes flicking from Loena and then to Gandalf, and then back again. "Loena and I rode out after she had seen some great eagle drop a parcel for the Rohirrim at the doorstep of our city, and I am relieved that it was a friend, not a foe."

"Indeed," Gandalf smiled. "Now, where is Théoden? There is much the two of us need to discuss."

Théoden would not be roused to meet with Gandalf, but the wizard didn't seem too perturbed.

"I can afford to spend a day in Edoras," Gandalf smiled softly, looking around. Loena had come to deliver the bad news to him, for he'd waited out the front of Meduseld, content to watch the people move around him. "Much has changed since I was last here. It would do me good to reacquaint myself with the horse-lords."

"Would you like me to join you?" Loena offered.

"Oh, no," Gandalf waved her away. "You are far too young and able to squander your days alongside an old man with too many stories."

They farewelled, with Gandalf promising to visit her again before he left. Loena watched Gandalf stroll away, his grey hair catching in the midday wind.

"I would not know you to be in the company of wizards," Éomer spoke behind her, and Loena turned, surprised. He was watching her, his eyes grey and serious, but his mouth quirked with the hint of a teasing smile. "Next you will tell me that you've been walking with the elves in Lothlórien, or feasting with the dwarves under the Lonely Mountain."

Loena laughed at his teasing, and turned to look at him fully. "I fear my invitation to Lothlórien must have been lost," she replied easily. She wrinkled her nose. "And I have not been convinced on the existence of dwarves."

"No?" Éomer looked bemused. "Surely in your studies you were taught the truth of Dwarves."

"Of course, they were mentioned," Loena said breezily. "But so too were hobbits, whom I'm certain have never graced the land of Middle Earth."

Éomer laughed. "I never picked you for a sceptic."

"Perhaps you don't know me as well as you'd think," Loena said breezily.

Éomer looked faintly discouraged by the thought. "Perhaps I do not."

Loena steeled her nerves and looked Éomer in the eye. He seemed taken aback by her forwardness; to him, she knew, she would seem shy and skittish. "Will you not join me on the watch-tower? I must relieve Hargar, for I promised I would return as soon as the matter of Gandalf was settled."

Éomer looked at her for a moment longer, and ducked his head. "I…should not."

Something about the way he said it caught at Loena's throat, as if he knew her motives, and was trying to subtly undermine them.

Loena smiled, though spared herself by staring at a spot just above his eyes. "The duties of a Marshal never cease! I shall see you soon, dear friend."

As the sun set, Loena stretched herself from her scouting position. Alphred had come to take her place, and she greeted him with a tired smile.

"No news to report," Loena informed him. "Good luck, tonight."

"I fear it will be another night thick with mist," Alphred looked to the sky with apprehension. It was true that the day had been cold enough, and the dew that gathered even now harkened no good sign. If the mist was thick, sentries were practically useless.

However deep and absolute the fog was, Alphred would have to maintain his vigilance until morning. Manning the watch tower was frustratingly idle at the best of times, and with nothing to distract, and no moonlight to work by, it would be impossibly boring. She attempted weakly; "I shall get someone to send you up extra blankets."

Dusk had settled in soundly around Edoras by the time Loena had climbed down from the perch. Around her torches were being lit, and people were hurrying back to their homes. The poorer citizens had likely all already gone to bed – they often turned in before sundown to save them the cost of tallow and wax. Those she saw milling around now were soldiers and guards, and even they seemed to be hastening home.

She had a brief flashing memory of Edoras when she was young, when people would sing and dance and drink until late at night around great roaring campfires. Now no one had the will, nor the energy. It felt like a nation in mourning.

Hers and her mother's home was near the base of Meduseld. It was a tall fine home, and though modest by noble standards, but grand in comparison to the world Loena had been first raised in. As she approached, she saw that the torch near the door had already been set alight.

Loena left her sword, bow and quiver at the front door. Her mother had a strict no-weapons policy when it came to their home. She paused when she saw an unfamiliar sword, still in its scabbard, waiting patiently at the door. She hadn't known that they'd be entertaining a guest.

She pushed the door open, "Mother! I am home!"

There was a strangely pregnant silence before her mother called back, with a strained voice, "Well met, my child. Come into the dining room as soon as you are able."

Loena shrugged off her cloak to leave at the front door, and a conversation – one that must have paused for her arrival – sounded out through the house. The voice that wasn't her mothers was low, and familiar.

She frowned, the voice's owner slipped just beyond her comprehension. Of the small number of guests they'd entertain over the years, none seemed to match the tenor.

She ran through the faces and voices of the men they'd sometimes meet, as she made her way quickly to the dining room. There she found her mother, a steaming pot of soup, two unused bowls and the Grey Wizard.

"Gandalf!" She said, nearly choking. She blinked, and then, remembering herself, moved to Bréa's side. "Well met, mother." She came around the table and embraced her. She looked up at Gandalf, and tried to smother her surprise. "It is good to see you again, my friend."

"I apologise for the shock, my dear, but the secrecy has all been well intended." He turned to my mother. "Bréa, I apologise for this inconvenience. Will your soup remain hot for the next few hours, if Loena and I are to make our leave?"

Leave? Loena snapped her gaze from her mother to Gandalf, surprised.

Her mother worried her bottom lip with her teeth. Loena wanted to say that the soup could always be kept warm over the hearth, but she realised with a sudden clarity, that her mother cared not for the temperature of the food. Something else was colouring Bréa's cheeks and quickening her drawing breath.

Loena had the strangest feeling come over her, like a cold wash come unexpected. A secret was about to be revealed here, something she should want to know.

"Come with me, my dear," Gandalf said slowly, as Loena's mother made no attempt at answer. "There is something I must show you outside of Edoras tonight."

"We should warn the sentries, if we are leaving the city," Loena said carefully, looking first to her silent, worried mother, to the serene profile of the grey wizard. "They may confuse us for criminals in the gloom."

"The gloom is thick enough to hide us from even the friendliest of eyes," Gandalf implored her. He stood. "Follow quickly, child. There will be time enough to worry if what you fear comes to pass, after the event has occurred."

Loena thought his logic flawed, especially if the "event" was them being stuck through with arrows, but decided to trust that Gandalf's magic could act as a shield. Gandalf arose and moved quickly to the door, waiting for her under the frame.

Confused, Loena looked to her mother, who watched her with round eyes. Bréa had once been a royal beauty, her Rohirric golden locks and tawny eyes had captured the hearts of every worthy man in Rohan. Now she seemed small, and lined, and tired.

"Farewell, Mama," Loena said, a sudden rush of affection for her mother swelling her heart.

"Farewell, my sweet," Bréa said quietly. Then, smiling, "I shall be here, waiting, when you return."

Loena hurried to catch up with Gandalf, who'd disappeared to the front door. His grey hat one gain covered his hair, and he had reattached his sword to his cloak. "I apologise for the lateness of the hour, but in these times, this sort of thing cannot be helped."

"It is no bother," Loena insisted, though she felt how her nervousness cinched her smile. "Truly." She affixed her cloak at her throat with tremoring hands, and reached for her own sword, _Gi__éd_, and tied it to the belt around her waist. She hesitated before leaving, "Gandalf, what we are doing…is it dangerous?"

"Oh, no," Gandalf shook his head. "But a sword is a friend when the night is dark. Tonight shall be dark indeed; even the moon is eclipsed by the denseness of the clouds."

He was right, Loena realised, looking around. The only light for them came from the torch light her mother had lit to help her when she arrived home. "Shall we take the torch with us?"

Gandalf shook his head roughly. "No, my dear. Your eyes, I'm sure, will adjust."

"Perhaps, if I were an elf," Loena murmured, quiet enough that she thought it well below the ability of an old man.

"Perhaps," Gandalf agreed good naturedly. "Alright, my once-Pupil, follow me closely, and do not make a sound." He went to go, but then drew back. "No matter how the night evolves." He made to go again, but drew back a second time. "No matter how curious you are."

Loena nodded her affirmation, and the two stole through Edoras quickly. Loena was light on her feet, but Gandalf was soundless. She figured she'd hear the rustling of the grass before she heard the sound of his footfall.

Before too long they were at the gate entering the city. The sentries there were rigid and alert, staring off at the plains in front of them. It seemed a folly, for even in the protected city, the mist had begun to descend. Through the darkness, Loena had to strain her eyes to keep track of where Gandalf was going.

He murmured something under his breath, and the gate to the city pushed slightly open. Loena paused at the sight of magic, even something so simple. If the sentries heard the creak of the wood, neither turned to check for its source. Gandalf pushed ahead without glancing back to see if Loena was following. Internally cursing, she did.

Once outside of the city, the gate silent swung closed behind her. Out here, the fog was complete, like a cloud that had been snatched from the sky. Gandalf led her on and on from the city gate. Neither sentries moved. Looking back at Edoras after just a moment of walking, she saw that the lights of the city were all that could make it through the viscous mist accosting it. A few more steps, and even the strongest torches shine would not make it through to her.

Still they moved, her and Gandalf, on across the moor. Grass and rock crunched underfoot, and mist began to coat her face and hands with cold droplets of water. When they finally came to rest, Loena was wiping the water from her brow as if it had been sweat.

"We shall stop here," Gandalf said, in a low voice.

"This weather is unnatural," Loena murmured to match his volume. All around her the frost had descended, absolute in its density. It seemed as solid and thick as the walls of a house. She looked back the way they had come, and could only make out the most fleeting of shape from the direction of the city. "It feels as though Edoras has been cursed."

Gandalf turned to her. She couldn't make out the expression on his face, but his voice was grave. "There are unsightly works ongoing in Rohan."

Loena wanted to push him for more information but, ever vague, Gandalf turned and sat down. "Sit with an old man, my dear. We have some waiting yet."

"I still do not know what it is we await," Loena said, her voice tantalising close to a whine.

"Which is part of the fun for me, as agonising as it is for you," Gandalf replied, and Loena could hear the smile in his words. "Now, tell me dear, how long have you vied for the affections of Éomer?"

Loena nearly choked. "Éomer?"

"Yes, I am certain you know him," Gandalf said. "Tall, well built, the one you often stare at when you think he is not looking…"

"Ah, yes," Loena said, feeling heat rush to her cheeks. "Well." She wanted to deny it, but she knew it useless. "Do you think he knows?" She sounded weak, and felt light-headed.

"Perhaps suspects, but is far from certain," Gandalf said. "Although he would be the only one in Endoras who is unaware."

"He is the second in line from a great house," Loena said, gloomily. She thought of all in Edoras knowing she vied for him, and wanted to put her face into her hands. She balled them on her lap to escape the impulse. "A glory amongst his men, proud and kind. There is no hope."

"For, I am guessing, you believe yourself from a faded house, far removed from its former glory," Gandalf surmised.

"That is not a matter of belief," Loena snorted. "The House of Baldor has crumbled for eon, and crumbles now. Any alternative is fiction."

Gandalf paused before he spoke again. When he did, his words were tight, like he'd selected each one carefully and after a lot of thought. "There is still hope for your house, Shieldmaiden. Need and opportunity have, in this age, coalesced with your coming."

"Need?" Loena frowned.

"Hush!" Gandalf said quickly, hearing something Loena had not. "All will be made clearer in just a moment."

Loena obeyed him, watching, eyes straining, through the mist.

She did not see the orc party, but she could hear them. Great hulking footsteps, and the clinking of boorish armour sounded out across the plains. Loena hastened a hold on her sword, but Gandalf held her arm, stilling her. She stood straight and tense, hearing their snorts and grunts as they moved. It was obvious, though, that they were doing their best approximation at silence. None spoke, none growled or snarled.

The sound of them moving came louder, and louder, and soon enough Loena thought she could make out their figures just ahead of her. They passed in and out of sight so fluidly she half felt that she'd made them up, if it weren't for the fact that the nearness of their sound placed them right in front of her.

Loena watched them as they went. None saw, nor sensed her. She wondered if it were some wizardry hiding her and Gandalf from their eyes.

Once they had disappeared, Gandalf was the first to speak. "This illustrates Rohan's great moment of need."

"How _dare _they stride so confidently across our lands!" Loena hissed, tightening her hold on _Gi__éd _once more. "If I had had my horse, and a lance, I would have charged them all, and strung them through. They'd know, then, how the Riders of Rohan treat _their_ kind!"

"I don't doubt your valour, Loena," Gandalf assured her. "But these orcs must live. For them to die would spoil plans long put into action." He hesitated. "I shall tell you much, tonight, but you first must understand, that in the days of old, the orcs would have never dared cross Rohan's lands so freely."

"Of that fact, I am keenly aware," Loena answered, her anger sending a sting to her words.

Back at her house, Loena sat across from Gandalf, her anger hulking her shoulders up her neck.

"I have a long story to tell you," Gandalf said. "But tell it, I must."

Gandalf told her of how he'd visited Saruman the White, and how Saruman had revealed himself as the Wizard of many colours. He recounted with a deep bitterness how Saruman had tricked and captured Gandalf. He told her of his lucky escape on one of the giant eagles Loena had beheld. His voice dropped low, as if to avoid being overheard, when he described his worry for Rohan.

He told her that Saruman had sent the mist to hide the comings of the orcs as they hunted for Gandalf after his escape, and that killing them would not allow them to report back no sign of the grey wizard was safer than silencing them completely.

"Rohan is being overrun," Gandalf said, severely, his ancient eyes intense beneath his hat. "Orthanc operates as if Rohan has already been captured for the dark."

"I don't understand why you are telling me this, and not Éomer, or Théodred, if Théoden has become too frail," Loena frowned, once the tale had been finally completed. "Éomer is a Marshal, and second in line, and Théodred is Prince and heir. Compared to them, I am powerless."

Gandalf beheld her for a moment. She felt very young under his gaze. "Do you truly believe that?"

Loena considered for a moment. She looked down at her lap, and pushed her skirt out over her knees. "I believe that my line has significance, Gandalf. And I believe that my ancestor held great power. But I also believe that the power is gone."

Gandalf considered her again. Loena did not like the slowness; it made her feel as though something were wrong. "But you do believe that there is, say, a _power _to being the scion of the line?"

Loena paused again. She knew he must be circling onto some sort of point, and she wanted to snap at him, so that he might arrive at it a little faster. "Theoretically," she settled on.

"But in no real, actionable way?" Gandalf pressed.

Loena pursed her lips. "Oh, no, I believe that there is a way forward, perhaps. And there might be a world in which this sort of news should come to me first. But it is not this day, nor this night."

"Someday," Gandalf figured for her, and she nodded. "Tell me, have I ever told you what I remember from the death of Brego's eldest son?"

Loena shook her head slowly, flicking quickly though all the old tales Gandalf had told her while she'd been in Minas Tirith. "No, I do not remember."

"The death of the King's heir spoilt the first, desperate years of the Rohirric nation," Gandalf said, a faraway look in his eye. "The youth of the country was lost in that moment. The days that passed before he fell had an altogether different feel to the days that passed after. True, the days ruled by his younger brother were golden ones, and true that they were a time of peace; but true it is also, that they were days of mourning." Gandalf was often grave like this, often spoke as though History was an unfolding story. "They would have been Baldor's; Golden days for him to watch over carefully. But it was to not be so."

"Golden days," Loena repeated, sighing, and rubbing her hand over her eyes. "It seems a foolish thought, in times such as these."

"It is not."

Loena looked up, frowning. "Is isn't?"

Gandalf shook his head slowly. "No. Loena, the death of Baldor was not unseen by the great magic that turns this world. It has been foreseen, by creatures other than I, that the line of your family is tied to the fate of this country. Baldor had lost his chance to push Rohan onto the path toward greatness." Gandalf paused. "It has been seen, that when this House is reaffirmed, the Golden Days shall return."

Loena stared at him. "_Me_?"

"Your family tee cannot wield a sword," Gandalf said, slightly irritated. "The spoken name cannot defend a country."

"How could a line such as mine bring about a New Age?" Loena demanded. "We have barely enough income to train and saddle its only daughter. There is no money for a host of men to fight in our name."

"It has never been the wealth of your House that given it power," Gandalf reminded her. "Yours, and all others, are only as valuable as the scions who inherit it. "Loena, you have noticed the orcs, and mourned the ever increasing blood spilt of your fellow riders. Other than the evil of Saruman, another enemy is gathering it's strength."

Loena remembered the shadow haunting Gondor with an aching clarity. Her studies at Gondor had been ever cast in its dimness. "Mordor," she surmised. "Sauron."

Gandalf nods slowly. "Yes." He glanced to the doors. "There is more for you to know, but I fear that Edoras is no longer the haven it was once was. Accompany me to Rivendell, where Elrond has called upon a host of free nations to a council. Gondor will be there, and the elves, dwarves." He paused, and smiled for the first time since they'd returned in from the mist. "Even a host of hobbits."

"Hobbits are real?" Loena asked, eyes wide, side tracked.

"Accompany me," Gandalf insisted. "And you shall renew the days of your house, Lord and Lands."

Loena barely needed to consider it.

"I shall visit the elves beside you, Mithrandir," she said, using his elvish name. Her voice was confident, her head held high. Opportunities such as the one that was presenting herself could not be squandered. "I shall see the days of my family renewed at last."

Perhaps to him she looked like a child, for he smiled fondly, and sadly.

As the night deepened, they made hasty preparations for what Loena would need with her when the two departed the next day after Gandalf had spoken with Théoden.

Gandalf made his leave when his part in the packing process had been exhausted. He warned her that travelling when she was exhausted would be an excruciating ordeal, and saw himself out the front door. Loena walked him to it, and saw as the door opened for him, that the mist had nearly completely dissipated, and that the stars above were clear and bright.

Once he had gone, Loena felt strange and distant, like a foreigner in her own home. It was as if her eagerness to leave had cursed her to be a stranger within her own walls, cold to the touch of the fire her mother had lit, distant and unseeing of the bouquets of flowers that had been presented along the entranceway. A great sadness overtook her soul in that moment, clouding the excitement for the weeks that lay ahead. This was the home that she and her mother had made was comfortable, and clean, and theirs. And she would likely not see it again for some time.

Acting on her urge, she padded up the stairs to her mother's room. The door opened easily at her touch, and she saw that her mother had left the fire crackling down to embers, slumbering under a mound of furs and woollen blankets.

"Mother," Loena whispered, kneeling by her mother's side. When Bréa didn't move, Loena cupped her cheek with her hand, and stroked the skin there with her thumb. With feeling, she tried again. "_Mama_."

Her mother moved under her hand, and with a bleary blink, she awoke. She frowned when she saw that it had been Loena who'd awoken her. "Daughter…" she started, voice weak with sleep.

"Do not strain yourself, mother," Loena warned her, pulling her hand away, and crouching at the side of her mother's bed. She smiled softly, with all the love in her heart. "I have been speaking with the Grey Wizard. He has asked me a mighty favour, a boon that might see Baldor's children renewed."

Loena had expected her mother to implore her to accept the favour, and laugh with the joy of their opportunity. But her face darkened, and her mouth puckered, and she closed her eyes and breathed deeply. "It is as I had feared, then."

Troubled, Loena leant forward. "How so, Mama?"

"This will be a great undertaking," Bréa said quietly. She reached out and clasped her daughters hand. "One dangerous and enduring. One, I fear, that you may not return from."

"You underestimate the sword I wield, and the determination in my heart," Loena assured her. "I will not fall." Inspired, she moved to sit on the bed beside her mother. When she spoke, she felt tears come to the corners of her eyes, hot and proud. "I swear by the blood of our forebears and their generations of sacrifice, by both the strength of my arm and air in my lungs, that the great days of our house shall be restored." She looked down to her mother, locking eyes "This is the duty I was created for, Mama, and is a duty I shall see done."

"I knew you were strong of soul the moment I first held you," Bréa said proudly. "Now come, lie with me like you are a child again. I would spend the night with you if I am to lose you tomorrow day. Come, the bed is warm, the fire glows even now. The world outside is dark, but I am with you."

Loena cast off her boots and sank into the furs across the bed.

"Sleep now, daughter," Bréa murmured, holding Loena's hand and coaxing her into closing her eyes. "The way is dark, and deep, and full of danger, but even against the strongest of odds, you will hold the course."


	3. A Kingly Gift

The morning started early for Loena. She'd already dressed for travelling, shaking fingers tightening the straps along the gear she wore when she rode with the eored. Brown leggings beneath a green tunic, with the gold stitching of the Eorl's horse across the chest. About her shoulders she cast a travelling cloak, thick and dark, tied up beneath her throat. She had a small pack, with a small amount of food, her whetstone, spare arrow heads and ribbons for securing back her hair.

Once she emerged from the house, she made sure her sword strapped to her side, and her bow and arrows cast across her back. It was then, turning around and blinking against the morning light, that she met the Grey Wizard.

"Good morning, Gandalf!" She called, youthful in her excitement.

"Good morning, young daughter of Leofwine," Gandalf smiled, tilting his head in greeting. He turned wry; "I can only hope your Lord King is in as good spirits as you this morning."

There was a spring in Loena's step as the two of them made their way to Meduseld. The air was crisp, but clear; the mist from the previous night seemed a strange memory as if a recollection from a dream. Around them the Rohirrim were beginning their days, fair haired women taking clothes and rags to be washed in the river, and men preparing their trades.

As they passed the smithy, Loena could hear the sound of steel against whetstone, and the low murmur of the voices of the Smith and his apprentice. She had left Edoras before, of course, on raids and counter-raids and expeditions, but there seemed something different about this now. There was no firm return in mind, no absolute in when she would return. She'd miss the sounds, the smells, that surrounded her.

Meduseld heralded them up the hill, and Loena and Gandalf both paused to admire the gold as the sun rose.

"Behold, Meduseld as it was intended to be seen," Gandalf murmured, more to himself than to Loena. "A true testament to the beauty of the creations of man."

Loena's chest fluttered with pride.

Once they'd arrived at Meduseld, both waited patiently outside. As the doors opened, he whom they'd sent to greet them shot a foul taste into Loena's mouth. She scowled as he looked at her, his beady eyes still clouded by his sickness.

"My Lady, and the Grey Wizard! How early you call upon you old, and ill king," Gríma said softly, accusingly. "Does he not deserve to rest, so late in life as he is?"

"If Théoden is awake, let him know that Gandalf the Grey has come with counsel," Gandalf told Gríma , unconcerned by Wormtongue's smirk.

"Shall he suffer the early chill so you can stir his worries?" Gríma demanded. "Do you come here, Gandalf, as a friend who would do your king kindnesses, or an enemy who only wishes to press worries on a troubled mind?"

"Get out of the way, Gríma ," Loena said grimly. "We'll have none of your venom this morning. We are immune to you this hour."

Gríma smiled at her. "Gracious as ever, the Lady of the house of Baldor!"

"Gríma , who comes here?" A familiar low voice sounded from behind him. Éomer emerged from behind Gríma , tight faced. There was no love between Théoden's nephew and his chief advisor.

"The Lady Loena and the Wizard," Gríma answered breezily. "They come to disrupt the kings slumber."

"The king is awake," Éomer said, annoyed. "He sits with Éowyn and Théodred, even now. Has your stint in the healing halls addled your mind? Or are you sick still? Allow these guests into Meduseld, it is not your right to bar them."

"These are dangerous times," Gríma said, though he stood aside, allowing Loena and Gandalf to enter. "It would be dangerous to accept all who seek to enter the hall."

"It would be dangerous if they were strangers, perhaps," Éomer said, irritation obvious and red across his face. He looked at Loena and Gandalf, smiling at them, gaze lingering on Loena for a moment. "Well met, Grey Wizard, Loena. The king is indeed eating, but he will take your counsel as he does so."

He looked at Loena curiously, and she tried to convey that she'd explain all to him soon.

_Later_, she made out with a blink.

Éomer tilted his head, interested, but turned and led them through the hall. Théoden was found sat between his son and Éowyn. Théodred was speaking in a low voice with his father. His hair was bound in a golden circlet, a fine, darned tunic across his chest. Éowyn had her back to them, but Loena could see she wore a white gown below her long, golden hair.

The king's niece and Loena had become much closer over the years, often sharing a sparring instructor. Even after Éowyn was forced to end her training, and bundle up her blade in blankets and raggedy clothes, they had remained friendly. They'd often seek each other out when the influential families gathered together.

That had not happened in a while. Loena had not properly seen her friend in many months.

"Théoden king," Gandalf announced himself, sword and staff in tow. Loena followed him, and Éomer stood beside her. Gríma slipped past them all, scurrying like a rat to his master's side.

"Gandalf the grey has come to disturb you, my lord," Gríma whispered into Théoden's ear.

"Begone, Wormtongue," Éomer called out, disgust obvious across his face. "Your counsel is not needed here."

"I obey my king, and my king alone," Gríma replied haughtily, hand on Théoden's shoulder. Loena tightened her jaw when she saw the wizened man bearing Eorl's crown lean into Gríma as if to seek comfort.

"Order him gone, Father," Théodred said. The circlet upon his brow made him look far older, and more grand. His voice, even, sounded out with far more force and strength than he usually bestowed. It was Théodred whom, of the company, Loena knew least. He was truly the child of his forebears, a wanderer of the lands he would come to rule. Like Éomer, he was a Marshal of his own éored, the finest horse riders through all the lands. He glanced at Éowyn, and Loena too saw that she was glaring at the black haired Rohirrim. "Gandalf has come to speak with you, and only you."

"Do you order me gone, my king?" Gríma asked, purred almost, into Théoden's ear.

The company watched, and the air around them seemed to deflate as Théoden, almost too slight to see, shook his head "no".

Gríma smiled and sat back, taking the seat between Théoden and Éowyn.

"Gríma may stay," Gandalf shrugged. "It means very little to me.

"I come to you, Théoden, because I know the source of the scourge upon your lands. I know why your people have come to fear the breaking of the night. Saruman can no longer be trusted in the West. Rohan, my lord, is under threat."

The silence in the room stung. Loena, who knew the tale, kept to looking from Éowyn, to Éomer, to Théodred. The siblings glanced at each other. From her side, Loena could see Éomer tense, mouth tight.

It was Gríma who spoke next. "Where is your proof, Greyhelm?"

"What proof do you require, Gríma Wormtongue?" Gandalf asked him, with an edge of anger. "Shall I show you the blood on my brow from the striking of his staff? The tear on my robes? If my own testimony is not _enough_ for you."

"I merely request that you do no overindulge yourself, and scare the king unnecessarily," Gríma said, voice as smooth as satin. "There is nothing so great in this world that Rohan cannot answer it, but with it would be folly to call a muster, when we are only presuming truth, not believing it."

"I believe Gandalf," Éomer said, moving forward. "Things have been evil, of late. The air, the weather. I can taste it in the food we pull from our ground. Something in Rohan is in need of fixing, and I trust Gandalf to come to us truthfully if he says he knows what it is."

"Poetry was never your strong suit, Éomer, son of Eomund," Gríma said, eyes flashing with a cruel humour.

"Leave us," the king wheezed, suddenly, from where he was sitting. "All…you…" He gestured to Éowyn, who seemed stricken, over her half-finished bowl of porridge. Even Théodred was included, and though his displeasure was obvious, he was the first to leave the hall.

"Gandalf," Loena murmured, looking at the Grey Wizard, who had his eyes shrewdly watching Théoden. "I would not leave you."

"You must, my dear," Gandalf said, he spared a moment of his musing to assuage her with a small smile. "I will come to collect you when I am done here. It will not be long. This delay cannot, and should not, continue. Elrond expects me."

"What do you whisper?" Gríma called.

"None of your concern," Loena spat, picking up her steps and leaving the room aside the king's kin. She spared a moment to comfort Éowyn, holding her hand onto her shoulder. The white lady smiled, humourlessly, in thanks, and each of them passed through the door into the small hall on the other side.

The door closed behind them.

Éomer's anger was palpable. He began to pace, hand clenched around his sword. Loena watched him.

"I see no reason for our dismissal," Éomer muttered. "Théoden has no right to exclude us from matters of state such as these."

"Do not question your king," Théodred snapped, though he looked as though he agreed with Éomer.

"This is Gríma's doing," Éowyn said, her voice as low and as dark as thunder. "If he had been kept from us for one more day, if his sickness had been slightly more severe, perhaps Théoden and Gandalf could have met properly."

"If Gríma had been much sicker, I would have hoped that it would have killed him," Loena said darkly. Théodred looked stricken, and Éowyn winced, but Éomer seemed to smirk under his beard.

Théodred shook his head. "I dislike Gríma as well, but the king grows sicker, and more tired, every day. He needs someone like Gríma , someone who defends him, someone who can be shrewd for him. Imagine if it had been Saruman here? Calling on us to defend ourselves against Gandalf the Grey?"

Loena inclined her head. "It is true that Wormtongue is a great gatekeeper, but there are plenty in this land who would be shrewd for their king, and still manage to allow him to maintain his dignity."

"My father _has _dignity," Théodred snapped. "I wouldn't have you speak of him in such a way again, Loena. I do not care what your ancestry says, you have no right to it."

"She speaks from the heart," Éowyn said, still quiet, though she looked to her cousin with a slow sort of strength. "Do not berate her for it."

"Especially when she is right," Éomer added, and Loena felt the air shrunk in her lungs when he met her eye, inclining his head in solidarity. "Théodred, your father fades quickly in more ways than one. He is not the Uncle who took us in after the death of our parents."

"Nor the liege who sought to protect me and my mother," Loena added.

Théodred seemed to decide to leave Éomer aside. "That protection was a generosity that you repay with blasphemy," he told her, jaw tight. He looked at both his cousins, and shook his head, disgusted. "I find no friends here."

"_Théodred_," Éowyn sighed, moving towards him. "Do you not see that we speak of your uncle with _worry_? Not scorn." She placed her hand onto the elbow of his crossed arm, but he shook her off. "No offence was intended."

"Offence was taken, all the same," Théodred said. He looked at Loena, and she met his gaze coolly. There was no anger, or hatred, in his gaze. Just tiredness, and frustration. He looked to each of them and marched off, spine as straight as a spear.

Éowyn looked to Éomer, and then to Loena, and sighed. "I will calm him down."

Éomer and Loena watched her rush after Théodred.

Loena realised, with a sort of panic, that she and Éomer were alone, unencumbered by the eyes of other people. It was a bad time to think it; but, It seemed easier now, without others around, to imagine kissing him. They were already standing close, the tightness of the hallway demanding it.

"He'll calm down," Éomer said, turning to Loena. He placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. She swallowed against how it felt, against the buzz of her skin. "His anger comes from worry for his father."

"I know," Loena said, nodding, trying her best to remain casual. She saw the worry on his face, how his eyes flickered from the closed door in front of them, to down the hallway where his sister and cousin had disappeared. "And his worry would be twofold; both losing his last parent, and becoming king of the realm at a desperate time."

"You believe Gandalf, then?" Éomer said.

"There is no doubt in my mind," Loena responded truthfully.

Éomer nodded. "I'm glad. And I hope this means that Uncle will respond to the growing number of orc attacks."

"I brought up something similar when I returned yesterday," Loena recalled. "He seemed receptive to ideas of change."

Éomer's face darkened. "Yesterday he was rid of that foul creature."

As if to acknowledge their mentioning of him, Gríma 's laugh was so loud as to sound out through the door.

Loena looked at Éomer, to the door, and back to Éomer. "If we crack the door," she said, trying her best to be unassuming. "We'll hear the conversation quite clearly."

Éomer raised his eyebrows. "To do so would be to counteract the order of the king."

"The king dismissed us from the room," Loena corrected him, airily. "He said nothing against us listening to what was said, nonetheless."

"We'd best be quiet, then," Éomer said, rolling his eyes and smiling.

Loena poked the door open, and the conversation came out in all his bluster and anger.

"The _king _has requested your _leave_, Storm Crow!" Gríma was close to screaming. "You have no right to be here any longer! No right! These halls are not yours to—"

"If I am to leave this place with all available speed, I will need an equine companion," Gandalf said menacingly. Loena could picture him, brow furrowed, hands white with frustration around his staff.

"I permit you the…" Théoden coughed, his voice weak. "Permit the use of…_any_…steed that…" He swallowed, hard enough for Loena to hear with a nauseating clarity. "That would deign to bear you hence."

"Any steed, you say?" Gandalf asked, and Loena wondered at his piqued curiosity. "Any horse across the great lands of Rohan?"

Théoden, must have been too spent to talk, because it was Gríma who answered Gandalf. "Do you doubt my lord's generosity?"

Ignoring him, Gandalf called out, "Loena! Éomer!"

Like two children caught in an act, they pushed the door properly open and walked out. Loena saw that Gandalf was standing where they'd left him, and that Théoden had slumped even further since the conversation had started.

"Éomer, your lord is unwell and needs rest," Gandalf said, nodding to the decrepit form of Théoden. "See to it that he finds his bed soon, and that he is left in peace."

"I shall do this," Éomer said. Gríma moved as if to speak, and Éomer silence him with a look. "I shall do this, _alone_."

"Loena," Gandalf addressed her, and she looked up. "I have been given a kingly gift from your Lord. I shall fetch it, and upon my return, we shall make our leave."

Loena nodded, nearly bowing, and when she straightened she was surprised to see Éomer frowning at her. His eyes caught something between jealousy and worry. The strangeness that had overtaken him disappeared just as quickly as it had come, but it remained pressing on Loena's mind.

Gandalf, sparing a moment to shake his head with disgust at Gríma , who'd begun whispering to Théoden, turned with a bluster and stalked out of Meduseld.

Loena turned back to Éomer, who raised a curious eyebrow.

"I am going with Gandalf to the council called by Elrond of Rivendell," she said simply. "There has been a change of fortune in the deepening darkness of this world. He has asked me to accompany him, and fulfil a prophecy made for my house at the death of my ancestor."

"Loena…" Éomer said slowly. "We…" He looked as though he struggled for words. "We need you _here_. The éorad needs you. You've seen the health of the king. Now is not the time—"

Loena was surprised; she had not expected her captain to react well, but she hadn't expected this either. She'd thought he'd damn her for abandoning the eored. She swallowed her confusion quickly.

"Now is the best time," Loena said, sadly. "I understand, now, better than most, that to save a home, one sometimes must leave it. If this is a gamble, I am willing to risk much for its success."

"Let me go," Éomer said. "I will represent Rohan." His speech became hurried, desperate. "We could send Théodred, even."

"Reality is cruel, Éomer, and reality tells us that Théodred may be crowned king any day now," she said, grim. "And if he is, and even if he is not, your men will need their Marshal with them if the evil Gandalf warns us of marches upon our lands."

Éomer looked at a loss. So tall, and strong, but slumped now, and with a tiredness Loena hadn't seen before. "I fear that the breaking of the house is the first step towards the breaking of Rohan as we know it now."

"I am not of your house," Loena said softly. "Your house shall remain strong."

Éomer looked as if he were to stay something, but stopped himself. He ran a hand over his face, frustration showing. "Do you know when you shall return?" He finally asked.

"No," she answered truthfully. "And something in my heart tells me that the journey shall be a long one. But at first opportunity I shall return here, Éomer, I swear it."

"The people will think you are abandoning them," Éomer said, grim. "The people of Rohan look to us for their strength. They will feel betrayed by your leaving. You are the _Ensign_, Loena. It is your job to be here as a symbol of our strength."

"If they think me dishonourable for a day, I can bear it," Loena told him. "If they curse me a week, I will understand and overcome it. But this is nothing compared to losing the lands we love to evil."

"You endure dishonour nobly," Éomer said, smiling despite his obvious and growing despair.

"I endure it because I must," Loena corrected him.

"Loena!"

Gandalf's voice cries out from outside the hall.

"So soon," Éomer said, pushing his hair out of his face, agitated. "Too soon."

"Soon enough," Loena finished for him. She moved to the door, and blinked in surprise at the crowd gathered there.

They were not, as she first supposed, come to see her and Gandalf off, but were distracted by the horse walking astride him. Loena knew of the Maeras, the long-lived horses of superior strength and speed that graced the hills of Rohan, and she knew that many men had tried, and failed, to tame those of their ilk. Even of those that she'd seen, however, none compared to the mighty steed in front of her now. Tall and proud, with a grey, silken coat and a proud set to his head. All in the crowd whispered to each other as the horse walked alongside Gandalf.

"Shadowfax," Gandalf presented to her, and the horse flicked its ears as if to acknowledge its name. "Lord of the Maeras, and my choice for companion from the great fields of Rohan." He ran his hand through its mane, and the horse nickered softly. "I had the chance to meet him yesterday afternoon outside the gates of the city. Today, he came at my call."

"My lord uncle will be quite displeased when he hears of your choice, Grey," Éomer said, though he smiled as he did. He stepped forward, looking over Shadowfax with a practiced eye. "With a steed such as this one, Gandalf, you would be at Rivendell in a week."

"He is a glory," Gandalf agreed. "Though I worry that the time we delay will be time we regret. Loena?"

She stepped forward, but at the call of her name, a shadow had descended over Éomer's face, and all wonder at Shadowfax had been forgotten. He strode up to her and came in close, grasping her arm and looking desperately into her eyes.

"You cannot leave in this way," He said fiercely. He spared a glance for Gandalf, but renewed his focus on her quickly. "You cannot leave this city." He looked properly to Gandalf now, who was watching them with guarded eyes. "Do not ask her to leave her _people_, in disgrace, Mithrandir."

"I ask of her nothing that she is not prepared to give," Gandalf answered him mildly.

Éomer tightened his jaw and looked back to Loena. "Is this _truly _what your heart desires, Loena? One word different, and I shall chase this Grey Pilgrim from our lands."

"A sight I would be terribly sorry to see," Gandalf said, somewhat drily.

"It truly is, Éomer," Loena said softly. "Though it may seem a moment of dishonour, I shall return in glory." She looked at him, and smiled. "You shall see."

Éomer nodded slowly. "Then allow me and the éored to accompany you to the border of Rohan. The lands are unsafe of late."

"I could not ask the Rohirrim to muster for such an ignoble cause," Loena said firmly.

"This is not a point of debate," Éomer said, equally set. "If you are to be our representative at the Council, I would have you get there in one piece."

"I will have the Grey Wizard with me," Loena said.

"Whom seems to attract more trouble than he repels," Éomer murmured, glaring back over Loena's shoulder to Gandalf.

"An accusation I bear fully, my boy," Gandalf answered. "I have no firm opinion on this matter. Whether you attend us or not, is reliant entirely upon the whim of the Lady."

"If you insist—"

"Which I do," Éomer assured her.

Loena fought back a sigh. "_Then_ I would have to sneak away without a proper farewell." She glanced back at Gandalf. She said this firmly; "You are needed _here_, Éomer."

"_You _need me also," he insisted.

"I have _Gi__éd_, and the courage of my kin," Loena said. They both turned to see the crowd begin to split apart, and Loena saw her mother lead Snowbourne through the people, already with a bridle and saddle. "I have Snowbourne. I have faith in my House, and in my lands." She smiled softly. "There is nothing more I could need."

"Loena, we can no longer delay," Gandalf called, and he mounted Shadowfax. The Mearas snorted, making his discomfort known, but did not charge or buck, and Gandalf seemed quite contented upon his back. He was bareback, but Gandalf did not seem perturbed. It was the ancient technique of the elves, Loena knew.

Loena looked to Éomer, and tried, as she had before, to speak without speaking. She looked at him with all the love she had not found the words to admit to him, with the heartbreak she was feeling at their parting. She tried to say, without moving her lips, that if he had asked her to stay, with him, for him, that she might have been tempted beyond all reasonability. She squeezed his hand, and let out a tight, anxious breath, and departed from him.

She smiled and embraced her mother, who pressed her forehead to her daughters for just a moment, murmuring a blessing of safe passage. Loena responded in kind by kissing her mother's forehead before swinging her legs up and mounting Snowbourne.

Éomer came to stand beside her, looking up at her upon her steed.

"Give Éowyn and Théodred my farewell," Loena told him.

He nodded, and reached up to hold her hand. "I would wish you a swift return." He kept his eyes trained on hers.

"As swift as I can manage," she bowed. "I swear it."

Gandalf led the way out of the city, and Loena spurred Snowbourne to follow along. It was only at the gates of the city that she looked back to Meduseld, and saw the Marshal of the Mark remaining there, staring after her, tugging at her heart, his golden hair caught in the wind.


	4. The Last Homely House

Snowbourne was a virile and strong horse. She had been the fastest of all the horses in Loena's eored, and had seemed the least exhausted by their long journeys across Rohan. But even she struggled against the speed and tirelessness of Shadowfax.

Whenever Gandalf and Loena slowed their pace, it was to address the ragged, desperate breathing of Loena's horse. By the third day, Snowbourne was ruined with exhaustion, sore to the touch and unresponsive to Loena's firmest directives, even after a break. Loena could not bear to push her any further, and when Gandalf suggested they set her loose to find her way back to Edoras, she agreed.

"She will know the way home," Gandalf had comforted her, as Loena stroked her mane, plaiting it with long grass so those who found her would know that her owner had not been killed. "She is a clever horse, but she is not a Mearas."

If Shadowfax struggled under the weight of an extra person, his speed did not show it. Loena clung desperately to Shadowfax's silken bareback, hands tangling themselves in his mane for balance. She had not known that Gandalf rode in the style of the elves, and she did not know how he could properly bear it. Despite how tenuous the entire exercise felt, it was plainly uncomfortable.

They rode through the day and under the watching moon. Whenever she slept, she slept upon the horse, with Gandalf supporting her from falling from its back. They stopped only to eat and to drink. At the breakneck speed they moved at, it took them only 8 days to arrive at Rivendell.

Her companion was unusually quiet as they rode, and Loena could tell that the issue of Saruman pressed on Gandalf's mind. When they did speak he was friendly and jovial, telling her tales of hobbits and birthday parties, and of how the parties in the Shire compared to the parties thrown by the elves.

"Each are fun, in their own way," Gandalf had said. "But the rigidity of the elves is something the hobbits do not have to overcome." He'd laughed. "And the food in the shire is far superior to anything the elves will cook for you."

Loena drunk in tales of Hobbiton and the little folk who lived there. She had been so certain that they hadn't existed, and had never been so pleased to have been proved wrong.

Mostly the trip had been silent, and she'd been left to her own thoughts. Those thoughts had, no matter their starting point, circled back to Éomer, the oath she'd sworn to him, and the grief on his face as she'd left.

Arriving at Rivendell was, in the end, a welcome respite from her inane inner monologue as well.

Rivendell was a beautiful city, filled with light and softness, rising above the forest like a mountain made by man. Everything was intricate and properly placed, and ever was there the sound of birds, the charming chatter of the small streams that ran throughout the grand estate, and the soft smell of flowers and fresh, crisp grass. On the outskirts of the city, Gandalf and Loena finally climbed from the broad back of Shadowfax.

"Farewell, my friend," Gandalf murmured to him, stroking his grand nose. "Blessed you are amongst your brethren. We shall see each other again, one day."

"Goodbye, Shadowfax," Loena said, stroking the horse's powerful neck.

With a low whinny, the horse turned and left.

"Does he return to Rohan?" Loena asked, watching his grey hide disappear into the murk of the trees.

"He does," Gandalf nodded. He seemed wistful as Shadowfax left. "He was never mine, not really. Not even a wizard could tame the lord of the horses." He looked to Loena and smiled. "But he will come, if I were to call."

"I wonder if Snowbourne knew who he was," Loena wondered aloud.

"I have no doubt she did," Gandalf chuckled merrily. "Now, this journey has, I'm afraid, left us both a little worse for wear. We shall greet our host, and then sleep away the miles."

Dusk had fallen by the time they reached the great gates marking entrance to Rivendell. The elves stationed there made no move to stop them as Gandalf walked through. Loena wondered if they'd have let her pass through if she'd been without him. Somehow she doubted it. She kept an eye on them as she and her companion passed through, half convinced they'd let Gandalf go and then pounce on her. But they made no move, and kept staring off through the archway.

Along the grand walkways of Rivendell, Loena felt out of place. The wonder of it made her feel as though she were walking through a dream. Even the growing darkness couldn't diminish its beauty. None questioned Loena as she walked in Gandalf's shadow, but the tall, grand strangers that passed looked at her with curiosity. They were breath-taking, tall and luminous, calm as they walked, and graceful, like a deer. These were the elves of Rivendell. Loena felt like a child beneath them, and averted her gaze whenever she met one of their eyes, terrified of the aged wisdom that grew there.

Soft yellows and blues and reds cast themselves into the buildings around her, tall trees with white leaves and cheek-soft flowers, a stirring breeze.

Inside the building Gandalf led her through were great pieces of artwork along the wall, depictions of battle scenes and moments of peace alike. Loena thought she saw one that could have been Rohan; the sterile rock and plain reminded her of her homeland, but Gandalf had whisked her on before she could study it properly.

They came to a rich wooden door. Gandalf knocked on it with the top of his staff.

"It's beautiful here," Loena said, slightly breathlessly, looking around. Even now the world seemed cast under some glorious, soft light. It was as though the sun were being shone through honey, or amber.

"The elves are clever in their architecture, and cleverer still with the trees and growing things around them," Gandalf said, frowning at the unanswered door. "I think we may have arrived—"

"Gandalf!" A voice called down the hall, and both Loena and Gandalf turned to see a tall, stately looking elf with brown hair, his face broken by a smile, come down the hall. He came to a stop in front of Gandalf, and nearly measured with the tall Wizard in stature. "I apologise for my absence. I sensed your arrival, but I have been occupied of late. I have been mending the mortal wound of the hobbit you sent to us. He, Aragorn and the others were rescued and brought here two days and three nights ago."

"Hobbit," Loena whispered, eyes wide.

"Hobbit indeed," Gandalf's face had thoroughly darkened. "I had sensed something ill on the air as I rode here. Now, standing in Imladris, I feel the truth of your words. Frodo was hurt, and hurts still."

Elrond nodded gravely. "Gandalf, it was a Nazgûl, with one of their cursed blades." He shook his head, disgusted.

Gandalf, despite his growing grimness, didn't seem surprised. "Yes, I had feared that they would find them. The Ringwraiths are not easily outrun."

"Had it been a moment later, or had the hobbit not shown the same hardiness and fought for as long as he did, the story would have been a different one. But hobbits are hardy folk." Elrond allowed himself a brief smile. "He will survive this darkness."

"I thank you for your healing skills, Elrond," Gandalf said, smiling.

"Who is Frodo?" Loena asked from behind Gandalf. "And what is a Nazgûl?"

"A Nazgûl is one of the nine wraiths corrupted by Sauron to be his most deadly servants," Gandalf turned to her, explaining with patience. "They were once men, but the power of Sauron's most deadly weapon was too strong, and they fell to the shadow."

"Ah," Loena nodded. She felt her heart beat pick up at the thought of them. "And we're safe from them here?"

"At the moment, at least," Gandalf assured her. "Frodo, now, is a young Hobbit from the shire, who has brought with him the reason for our meeting." He looked back to Elrond. "Lord Elrond, I bring with me Loena of Rohan, a hose-mistress and Maiden-of-the-Shield. She is the descendent of Baldor."

Elrond seemed to grasp the brevity of her forebear, and his mouth quirked with surprise. He surveyed her quickly, her dirty clothes, travel torn hair, wind-reddened face. Loena felt herself squirm under the scrutiny. "Well met, Lady Loena."

"Well met, Lord Elrond," she replied, bowing. She glanced around. "Rivendell is beautiful, my lord."

"Ah, yes, but it is but a shadow of the realm it once was," Elrond smiled fondly, looking around. "As more of us travel across the seas, the grace of the elves fades, and so too do the homes we once lived in."

Loena had no special love for the elves, really. But the idea of them leaving Middle Earth struck a deep, unrefined chord within her. It seemed so sad, and so lonely, that the elves had decided their time in Middle Earth ended. She had a sudden vision of her descendent stumbling across the crumbling ruins of Rivendell in many years, the once lively city as silent as a tomb.

"Pleasantries must wait, I fear," Gandalf said. He turned to Loena. "I am sorry to leave you here, now alone, my dear. I shall find you soon, and we shall discuss many grave and terrible things. Before then, however, I would have you walk amongst the trees and flowers, and read the great writings of the elves."

Loena nodded. "I will, Gandalf, but at this time the only thing I truly desire is a quiet moment to sleep."

"Of course," Elrond said. "We have plenty of room here, in Imladris. There will be a great host of people arriving soon, and you are in the unique position of having the first choice of the best chambers."

Elrond summoned an elf passing, a female elf with silvery hair and the elven slim, tall build, to take Loena to where she could sleep. The elf spoke politely with Loena, but by the time they arrived at the rooms, Loena felt that she could remember none of the conversation, not even her companion's name.

"This room has the nicest view over the garden," her companion said, hovering outside the door. "And it has a fresco painted by Elrond's daughter on the ceiling."

"Elrond has a daughter?" Loena asked, caught off guard.

"Arwen Undomiel," the elf informed her, smiling with a great fondness as she spoke the name. "I am sure you will meet her, should you stay here for long. A great beauty is she, both body and soul. It was she, as well, who rescued the Hobbit from the clutches of Mordor's servants, and she who enchanted his wound to slow."

Loena was intrigued by the existence of a fellow shield-maiden, and an elf as well, but knew her exhaustion would only be worsened by further conversation. She, too, was bewildered by the idea of Mordor's agents working so closely to Rivendell, and so freely. She wondered what the hobbits had done, or had done to them, to make them such a target for Sauron. "Thank you, for your help."

The elf nodded, and then, "if you require anything else, do not hesitate to ask."

"Bathing?" Loena requested weakly.

The elf's smile was broad, then, and she nearly laughed. "At the great bathing houses near the river. I shall send someone to show you in the morning."

Loena nodded her thanks and pushed the door to her room open. She was too tired to do much other than strip off her travelling gear and tumble into bed, burying her face in the soft fabrics adorned there, and drift off into sleep.

_Loena dreamt that she was a woman standing in a field. She could feel that she was young, she could feel that the sky above her threatened to break. The clouds had rolled in._

_The wind blew across the plain._

_The sky was a strong blue again, but still she stood._

_Her father was dead. Her mother was dead. The mountains were coming._

_A voice called from behind her, as though begging her to turn; "Beornia!"_

_She turned. And the wind blew her golden tresses across her face._

Loena spent the first 30 minutes of her waking the next morning studying the fresco above her. It was a woman, hair covered by cloth, with her eyes closed, holding a small boy. The boy, too, was sleeping, but he clutched a sword and a standard in his small hands. Behind them was a lovely scene of nature, white flowers bloomed from a pearl-white tree. Green was the grass underfoot, and the sky above was a summer blue.

As promised, an Elf, tall, darkhaired, named Tinnriel, came to lead Loena to the bathing rooms early that next morning. She was taken through Rivendell which, even at the early hour Loena arose, was full and bustling. Elves walked and talked with each other in their low, melodic voices. There were other beings as well, though. Loena had to stop and double check her sight when she saw a Dwarf, short and bearded, speaking with an elf across a field. She'd never seen a dwarf before. She wondered if they spoke the Common Tongue, and if there was anything to the tales that they ate only stone and drank an ale brewed from gemstones.

It felt good to bathe, and let the days of travel soak off her skin into the perfumed, warmed waters prepared by the elves.

She had her breakfast in the dining halls quickly, and alone. Around her elves ate and drank and spoke to one another. She spied one host of elves with strikingly blonde hair, fairer than the golden locks of the Rohirrim. The way they gathered had Loena suppose that they were merely the kin of Rivendell Elves, and had come from one of their other Elven realms.

She wondered if it were Lothlórien that they harked from. Some of them would be quite old, she knew the Elves to be long-lived. Some would have been around at the time of her ancestor, Baldor. Some may have even met Beornia, his daughter, first Woman-To-Ride-Her-Horse-Like-A-Man.

She dared not ask them.

She spent the rest of the morning perusing the books the elves kept in their library. An Elf, Helion, had helped her locate the few books written in the Common Tongue. She had parsed through them with a keen interest, pouring over the maps and reading through the pages carefully. The first tome had been an account of a strange Race of men in the East.

The next was an encyclopedia on the different herbs found near Fangorn Forest, and their medicinal properties. Besides each a gifted hand had drawn an example. Loena recognised some, though she had always thought them weeds, and committed them to memory.

Soon her eyes tired, and she stood and stretched, glancing out the window to see the sun far higher in the sky.

Once finished, she emerged and spied Gandalf walking with haste across the courtyard. It was still misty that morning, and to her he seemed murky, dreamlike. She hurried to meet him, calling out to him.

"Loena!" Gandalf beamed, and stopped to turn to her. "It is good to see you looking so well. I would speak with you now, but there is somewhere I must be." He paused, considering her again. He slowly smiled. "How would you like to meet a Hobbit?"

"Very well," Loena said, eyes wide with excitement. She followed after Gandalf's cloak with excitement. He was a tall man, and his strides were long. Loena had to hurry to keep up with him.

"I'm sorry to say that my reason for this introduction is not completely altruistic," Gandalf said. "This particular hobbit has been by his friend's sickbed for nearly 4 days straight. For 4 days he has not slept nor eaten, and I'm afraid I'm relying on you to shock him into taking care of himself."

"I'll not let you down," Loena promised.

"Samwise Gamgee is his name, and he has a rather large soft-spot for, his sick friend, the Hobbit we were discussing yesterday evening with Elrond. Frodo," Gandalf told her. They took a corner, and walked along a corridor open to the elements. Up ahead was an ornate door inlaid with murky glass. If she narrowed her eyes, Loena could make out shapes moving behind it.

The two of them paused before Gandalf opened it. "Be kind to Sam, Loena," Gandalf said. "He has had a rough month of travel."

Loena nodded, and resisted the urge to scold Gandalf for thinking she'd be anything less than pleasant. She did realise, however, before she did, that it would seem a rather unpleasant thing to do. "Of course."

"Wait here," Gandalf said, and he winked, and then disappeared into the sick-room.

A moment later, the door was opened again, and a small, child-sized man was being pushed from the room. "_No_—" It was yelling.

"Samwise Gamgee, if you do not leave the room this instant, I will be forced to turn you into a toad," Gandalf bellowed over his opposition.

"I'd listen to him," Loena advised. Sam started when he saw her.

"You're no elf," Sam said, blinking up at her.

"No," Loena said, privately thinking that it would have been something of a comfort to these dwarf-hobbit things. He seemed no less apprehensive, however, and Loena had to figure that hobbits had as little contact with humans as they did elves. "I am Loena, of Rohan."

"Rohan?" Sam asked, blinking.

"Yes…it's—" Loena started, puzzled at his response. Surely hobbits were not so separate from the world of men that they had no knowledge of her homeland.

In their defence, she supposed, she had thought them a myth barely a week ago.

"Loena will be taking you to get some food from the dining hall," Gandalf told Sam. "You are to go with her, and if you try to run, she is as proficient with long range weapons as one could hope to be."

Sam gulped, looking up at her with a new fear. "Fair enough then, Mr. Gandalf." He looked back at the room he'd exited mournfully. "If he wakes, you will get me, won't you? I wouldn't have him wake without me near."

Loena felt her heart swell unexpectedly. Their fellowship struck her, as genuine as anything she'd seen amongst the men of Rohan. She didn't know why she had expected anything less.

"Come, master Hobbit," Loena said, resisting the urge to take his hand as if he were a small child. "You might have to follow along behind me. I have the strongest feeling that you may not know the way."

Sam walked beside her dutifully. He was very polite, asking her about her journey from Rohan, where she'd met Gandalf, what she thought of Rivendell. Under the light of the sun, the exhaustion on his face was obvious. Black bruises stood stark under his eyes, and his face and neck were drawn, like he'd gone a long while without eating.

"Tell me about your home," Loena said, as the passed through a courtyard of sand coloured stone, littered with golden leaves. She forced herself not to pry him with the particulars of their arrival in Rivendell. She still wondered, desperately, at how they'd come to find themselves hunted by Sauron's dark agents. Sam's stillness stopped her, though, and she kept her curiosity in check. "The Shry?"

"Begging your pardon, the Shire," Sam corrected her. "What would you like to know?"

"Anything," Loena shrugged. "We hear very little about the rest of the world in Rohan, and when we do, it usually concerns the other domains of men."

"Well," Sam said thoughtfully. "The shire is small, but it's warm. The earth is fruitful, and fruit and other things love growing there. It's peaceful, for the most part, except when old mr. Bilbo would host his grand birthday parties."

"It sounds idyllic," Loena said. She thought of Rohan's eternal plains, of the crags and clear air. A hard land for hard people. "What else?"

"Well," Sam said, becoming more enthusiastic. "Hobbits themselves, you know, are rather slow-moving people. I don't mean that physically, of course, although we wouldn't beat a big Person in a race."

Loena burst out laughing. "No?"

Sam smiled at her laughter. "No, surely not. Our legs don't reach your knees."

"They'd certainly reach _my _knees," Loena said, still smiling. "But I apologise for jesting, Samwise. Slow in what way?"

"Slow moving in the way that, they don't like change at all, really," Sam described. "In the Shire we like things kept the way they are."

"Admirable," Loena said, inclining her head.

"Maybe sometimes," Sam said, a worried look on his face. They fell silent, and Loena figured he'd fallen back into remembering Frodo.

"Here," she said softly. "It looks as though we've arrived."

"Sam!"

Across the hall, two other hobbits were waving for their attention. Both were the same height as Sam, though one seemed much younger, and the other seemed a little older.

"Over here!"

"Friends of yours?" Loena supposed.

"Oh, well, yes," Sam said, and seemed a little embarrassed.

The two Hobbits rushed to Sam and embraced him. Loena took a step back, fearing getting in their path.

"Who's your friend?" The younger looking one asked.

"The Lady Loena of Rohan," Sam said, rather hotly, like he was defending her. "And I'd have you speak with slightly more decorum around her, if you don't mind."

The younger one looked a little stricken at Sam's words, but retained enough composure to introduce himself. "Peregrin Took," the hobbit shook her hand, and she bent over to reach his hand. "Though, you can call me Pippin." He smiled at her. "I only get called Peregrin when I'm being scolded."

"So, pretty often, then, Pip," the second one said, smirking at his friend. He turned to Loena. "Meriadoc Brandybuck, but I only _ever _get called Merry."

Loena laughed again. "Well met, Hobbits. I've been getting stories of your homeland from Sam, here. It seems like a rather wonderful place."

"Yes, it is," Pippin said. "I suppose we'll be returning to it rather soon."

They walked into the hall together, and sat at the end of one of the long tables. Loena joined the three of them as they ate, and marvelled at the amount their tiny bodies were able to consume.

"Say, isn't that Frodo's healer?" Sam said, his voice a half whisper, looking to the top of the hall. "That strange fellow sitting on that big ol' grand seat over there?"

Loena looked and saw Elrond smiling down at the gathered congregation. Next to him was a snow-pale elf maiden, serene and of an other-worldly beautiful. "Lord Elrond," Leona told him, keeping her voice low. "He's master of Imladris, which is what the elves call this place, I've come to notice."

Sam reddened slightly. "An Elven Lord! Tendin' to Mr. Frodo! Well, my old gaffer would never believe this."

"I think the woman aside him is his daughter," Loena said, nodding forward. Sam's eyes widened as he noticed her, and he drank from his goblet to hide his ruddy cheeks. "Lady Arwen."

"Well, that over there is Strider," Pippin said, nodding to where a tall, stern man, with dark hair and grey eyes sat. He was beside one of the blond elves Loena had seen at breakfast. They were smiling together, and she watched as "Strider" grasped the forearm of the elf. "He escorted us here from Bree. He's not bad, old Strider. Strange as a folktale, though."

Loena frowned at the sight of him. There was something proud about him, and strong, but he didn't have the same strange grace of the elves. "He seems a strange elf."

Sam blinked at her. "Begging your pardon, miss," he said. "But he's not an Elf at all. He's a man."

"Truly?" Loena watched him with surprise. "Where does he hark from? Not from Rohan, surely."

"No, somewhere in the North," Merry said. "A Ranger, he told us."

Loena narrowed her eyes at him. Something tickled at the back of her mind, something she'd read in Gondor, during her education perhaps. Or maybe it was one of the tales Gandalf had told her in her youth, or perhaps something Éomer had told her once. A race of Rangers…the phrase felt familiar. Strider would be someone to talk to, it seemed, before she was returned to Rohan.

An Elf came over to the small gathered party, and announced quickly that the Hobbit Frodo of the Shire had awoken, and was accepting guests.

The news spurred near instant movement from Sam, who started up and, apologising profusely to Loena and letting her know how it had been "just lovely to meet you". He ran out of the hall quickly.

Pippin heaved a sigh. "We'd better go after him, though I suspect Frodo would rather like a few moments of peace before we all go barging on in."

He and Merry climbed down from their seats.

"That's just about the most tactful you've ever been, Pip," Merry mentioned, and Pippin snorted. They said goodbye to Loena far more slowly, and walked after Sam, following his path out the doors.

She watched them go sullenly, feeling suddenly and obviously alone again. She looked around, and saw that none looked at her, and that she recognised none that she would be comfortable talking to. Her lunch was mostly finished, and she no longer desired to sit in the great hall. She stood and walked swiftly out the doors.


	5. EXTENDED SCENE 1: Arwen Undomiel

Arwen approached the young Rohirric woman with silent steps. She was sitting on a bench looking out to the forests coating the sides of the valley around them. Her profile was, all at once, so familiar and so foreign to Arwen. She paused, just barely, as she shook the cobwebs of deep memory from her mind. She pushed on, resolving that no dredged emotion would push to the surface.

Loena, daughter of Leofwine, must have been deep in thought, eyes drawn back, for it wasn't until Arwen was close enough to touch her that she noticed her arrival.

"Oh, my Lady," Loena said, standing quickly and half bowing. She glanced up, apprehensive. "I did not hear your approach."

"Worry not," Arwen assured her. "You were deep in thought. I am sorry I disturbed it."

"It was a strange thought, and one that ought to have been disturbed," Loena assured her, smiling tightly. Arwen had not been to Rohan before, but had seen the Rohirrim when she'd been living with her grandmother Galadriel. From time to time they'd wander the woods. Sometimes they would be lost, and sometimes they would be searching for the Elves.

They were all fair of hair, tall of stature, with sun-kissed skin and sky coloured eyes. They were more earthy than their Gondorian counterparts; Arwen remembered how Aragorn would describe them – wise but unlearned, generous and simple, but proud. Loena had the Rohirric blonde hair, and their blue eyes and soft, near-gold skin. She was strong of stature, fair of face, and bore an old, familiar beauty.

"Even odd thoughts are often worth thinking," Arwen offered. "I always find my thoughts wander when I look out to the woods."

"It sometimes feels as though you're lost in them, just by gazing at them," Loena said, wistful. She cleared her throat and straightened, clearly embarrassed. "Is there anything I can do for you, my Lady?"

Arwen gazed upon her a moment too long, fascinated and unblinking, and had to swallow her growing shock before it wrote itself clearly across her face. For Gandalf had been right about Loena, _impossibly _right.

The flashing beauty of that long-dead daring Rohirric Sheildmaiden who had led the charging eored herd behind her, was nearly perfectly resembled before her. That woman who had lived so long ago, and survived to her old age, as strong and as virile as the country she had loved.

In Lothlórien, there had been a song sung of her during Arwen's stay. She remembered it well, a litany about an orphan girl, who shed her grief and arose with the rising of the sun; _Horse-Spirit_, they had called her, _Shield Maiden, Thandwen._

Beornia.

Loena blinked with Beornia's eyes, and smiled with her mouth. She held herself with Beornia's grace, and her confidence. She pushed her locks back from her face with Beornia's clever hands. _Golden haired for a Golden Age._

"I come to welcome you properly to my father's house," Arwen smiled at her, blinking away the disconcerting feeling that had been creeping along her neck. "I have heard, rather to my displeasure, that you have not been properly shown around yet. If what I have been told is correct, one such as yourself will need to know where it is we train for battle."

Loena seemed to nearly sag with relief. "Thank you, my lady."

"Come," Arwen said, and Loena came into step beside her.

"I know the baths, and the dining hall, and Frodo's bedchamber," Loena listed.

"You would have had the entire house mapped out soon enough, without my help, then," Arwen said.

Loena beamed. "Thank you, my lady."

Arwen smiled back. She pushed on across the yard, and could feel her dark locks bounce against her back as she picked up speed. She took Loena to the archery range, where the elves and their blessed eyesight shot true from many metres away. Then to the fields where the elves practiced sparring, and other forms of hand-to-hand warfare.

"These fields have been busy, of late," Arwen said, feeling the worry and loneliness of her age fill her, and she closed her fists against them. "When I was a child, only the elven guard need train for battle. Our great warriors would come here, and we would all gather to watch them. Now all must fight. Now, no hands have yet to hold a blade."

"At least you prepare," Loena said, voice low and worried. At Arwen's curious glance, she ducked her head. "I…apologise. I didn't meant to insinuate—"

"No, no, please," Arwen brushed off her apology. "Go on. How do you mean?"

"Rohan continues as if peace were certain," Loena explained quickly, the girl tugged at the ends of her golden hair, filing it between her fingers absently. "From what Gandalf and your lord father have said, it seems to me that the opposite is true."

"Perhaps your king has hope," Arwen offered.

Loena's face darkened, and she shook her head slowly. She let her hair fall, and crossed her arms in front of herself, as though she were staving off cold. "No, my lady. If for anything, one can be hopeful and still practice realistic foresight."

"You believe in the rising dark, and your king does not?" Arwen asked.

"My king is lost to old age and senility," Loena said, bitterly. "He ignores those who would do him well, and listens to those who would do him harm. He fears war, and thinks that by avoiding its mention, he can avoid it altogether."

"He is frightened, then," Arwen said, softly.

"He'll let his fear overcome him, and then all in Rohan will fall," Loena said, sounding hopeless. "The tales Gandalf and Elrond have told me are frightening, my lady. These are not moments of random panic, these are the stirrings of a dark intent. One that would eliminate all the light from the world."

Both fell silent. Arwen absently felt at the cut on her cheek, the cut that had almost healed. It was now just a pink mark against her skin. She remembered the cry of the Nazgûl, and the screams of their horses. "Come," she said quickly. "Imladris is better seen before the sun properly sets, and we have only a few hours of sunlight to survive it."

Arwen showed her to the great statue halls, and Arwen delighted in Loena's wide-eyed wonder at the ancient figures housed there. Then the crypt where they kept the broken shards of Isildur's shattered blade, and the tale of his victory over Sauron on the walls. Loena had frowned in concentration as Arwen recounted the tale.

Loena had shook her head slowly as Arwen had finished, as if trying to chase a thought that had gotten lost. "I feel like I remember that story, perhaps from my younger days."

"All should know that story," Arwen said.

Loena had bowed her head in agreement, but said nothing.

The light became properly golden and low around them, and their afternoon seemed spent. Arwen walked astride Loena, slowing her steps for the Rohirric woman's comfort. "It pleases me to see you enjoy my home, as you do, young one," Arwen said, noting with satisfaction the easier hold of her shoulders, and the looseness of her brow.

"Thank you for showing it to me, today, my Lady," Loena smiled at her, with a wilfulness, and a fierceness. "You must come to Edoras, my city, so I can return the favour. Edoras is simple, but it is beautiful."

"I would enjoy that," Arwen told her truthfully. If her fate had now, been truly set, and if she truly was the child of Luthien, then her days left waking were numbered. Places like Edoras had once been somewhere she had thousands of years to attend to. Now she had a mere scattering of moments.

"_Sister_!"

Arwen turned at the familiar voice calling to her in Sindarin, and felt Loena pause and turn beside her. She smiled when she saw her brothers approach her, so similar in look and sound that to any but those who loved them, they would have been indistinguishable from one another.

"Elladan," she smiled, and nodded, speaking in Westron for the benefit of her guest. "Elrohir. I thought you were to return to Rivendell two weeks from now."

"We were," Elladan said, reverting to Westron to match her, casting a curious eye to her companion. "Father requested we return with all possible haste. The council approaches; all must remain."

"Ah," Arwen said, stealing a look at Loena, who was still watching her brothers with a bewildered look on her face. She wondered if Loena were caught on their sameness to each other, or their strangeness to herself. "Elrondion, meet the Lady Loena of Edoras. She joins us for that same Council."

"_Mae Govannen_, Loena," Elrohir said, and Elladan nodded in turn. "We had not known we would be accepting a showing from Rohan, and I am glad the information was wrong."

Loena's nervousness shone through when she spoke. "Ah, yes, well, I am here by Gandalf the Grey's request, not of that of my liege."

That seemed to have piqued Arwen's brother's interest. They looked at her with a renewed curiosity.

"Go, find a table for us to eat at tonight," Arwen said, dismissing Loena alongside her brothers. "I have one more errand I must run."

Loena looked at her, stark and petrified at the idea of being left alone with two strangers. Arwen felt for her, deeply, and expressed this as well as she could. "I will return as soon as I can," she promised gently.

Loena went without complaint, and Elrohir and Elladan came to walk either side of her. She heard their voices, and then hers rise up in answer. She seemed quite short between them, and her hair all the fairer compared to their dark tresses. Arwen watched them go with a pang, and swallowed her worry away.

"You feel for the girl," Mithrandir announced himself behind her in Sindarin, and she turned, greeting him with a soft smile. "I should have known, my Lady, not to send lost things your way."

"I do have a soft spot for the cast-offs of this world," she said lightly, switching to her mother tongue also, turning to face Mithrandir as he approached her. She glanced back to the door, where Loena and her brothers had disappeared. "Mithrandir, she feels adrift to me, anchorless." She looked at him, and her smile dropped. "I know not why you brought her here, away from her people. She loves Rohan, she would have protected it to her last breath." She worked her jaw.

"You know as well as I, Undomiel, that the strongest move we have is one perilous, and far from home," Mithrandir responded, though he sounded pained to say it. "If Galadriel's prophecy was correct about the fate of her line, then she has some part to play in this. I would not have us sacrifice the entirety of Middle Earth for her discomfort, no matter how much the idea of her being so pains me."

"Beornia would not have left her people," Arwen said, unconvinced.

"Loena is not Beornia—"

"_How _do you say…you have _seen _her as well as I have."

"She…" Gandalf stopped and sighed. "Arwen, the prophecy is as complicated as Beornia's legacy." He paused. "And Beornia _would _have come to Rivendell, if I had approached her with the same terms I came to Loena with."

"Beornia would not even come into the woods of Lothlórien," Arwen reminded him, remembering.

"That was not her choice," Gandalf reminded her gravely. "Her people are a superstitious type. They thought that if she left, she would take their spirit and their fire with her. Loena has no such mythology."

"Perhaps it was _not _mythology."

"Perhaps," Gandalf agreed. "But if you had let me finish, just before, my dear Evenstar, I would have said; _Loena is not Beornia, yet._"

Arwen fell silent, and held her lips tightly together.

"Thank you for taking care of her today," Gandalf said, finally. "I think, between you and the hobbits, her spirits may have been lifted somewhat." He sighed. "Rohan is a proud people, with a strong heritage. They love their home, they defend it. She knows this, knows it instinctively.

"And Rohan will know her love for it, before the end."

Arwen felt a great wind come through the courtyard, it pulled at her hair and at the corners of her gown. "The path is none too easy."

"The way is hard for all who seek to undo the great undoing Sauron seeks to wrought," Gandalf said. He looked at her kindly. "Do not worry, dear Lady. She will be, if for nothing else, under my protection, and under the protection of all free people."

Arwen felt, despite her worry, slightly gratified at that. "Thank you, Mithrandir."

He nodded to her, in a half bow. "Now, do not let me keep you. I have no doubt that Aragorn and your father await you."

"I shall, I think," Arwen said. "There will be many songs of Elbereth sung throughout this realm tonight."


	6. A Formation

In the dining hall, Loena, Elladan and Elrohir were stopped by the sight of three forlorn looking hobbits.

"These must be Estel's companions," the one on her right, whom Loena had decided must be "Elladan" (until she was proven wrong) said thoughtfully. "I wonder at their forlorn expressions! Surely they must have heard the news that their friend is well."

"Which one is Estel?" Loena asked, looking across the room.

"The man over there, the proud one, with dark hair and brooding look," the other, now labelled Elrohir, said, pointing to where the named man sat.

Loena frowned and tilted her head. "Is that not Strider?"

"Strider!" Elladan said. "Well yes, it is. He is both Strider, and Estel, and by the language of his kin also called Aragorn. Which of the three her prefers, I know not. Us Elves call him Estel, for it was the name given to him by our people, and it was the name he was called for the first 20 years of his life."

"He seems like one from Gondor," Leona frowned, assessing him quickly. Tall, proud and dark; like the Steward and his sons that she'd met so many years ago.

"His tale is for him to tell, though I promise it is an exciting one," Elladan said.

"Come," Elrohir said. "Let us see what bothers our shire-dwelling friends."

Loena led their approach, feeling uncomfortably visible in the company of the Lord's two sons. The hobbits attempted a half smile as she approached, but she saw that none would reach their eyes.

"Good eve, Sam," Loena nodded to him, smiling. "To Pippin, and Merry too." She gestured to the two beside her. "These are Elladan and Elrohir, our lord host's sons."

"Hullo, Loena," Pippin said, by his countenance alone still the most cheerful of the three. "And hello elves! We met your sister earlier, though it were under rather strained circumstances."

"Arwen has told us of your four arrival," Elladan said. "And," he added. "The nature of Frodo's escape across the Ford."

"We met Glorfindel as well," Merry piped up, the next to recover from his downturned face. "He's a strapping Elf, and a clever fellow as well."

"We came over to seek the cause of your sadness," Loena said. She was focusing on Sam, who was watching the proceedings with a miserable attentiveness. "Tell me, Sam, what troubles you now?"

"Mr. Frodo is awake, but Gandalf has forbidden us folk from visitin' him in his chambers," Sam said, and Pippin patted him on the back soothingly. "I won't sit still or pretty until I see him recovered with my own two eyes!"

"Ah! Well then we _are _well met," Elrohir said. "For we were just talking with Bilbo, who'd said that his many hours of petitioning had come to something finally, and that Gandalf had allowed him into Frodo's room."

Sam sat bolt upright. "You don't mean to say, that you think we are allowed to go as well, now?"

"Elladan and I have a rather undignified philosophy when it comes to matters such as these," Elrohir said. Loena started at the Elf mentioning his brother's name, and quickly memorised which brother was which, crossing her fingers for the side Elrohir stood. She was under no illusion though, that once she lost them to her left and her right, that she would have no idea how to tell them apart. "It would be better, in cases such as these, to plead Gandalf's forgiveness, than seek his permission."

Merry and Pippin's faces split into wide grins.

"Well said sir," Pippin beamed.

"We'll let you go in first, Sam," Merry added drily, as Sam, unseeing and without hearing, stumbled out of his chair and rushed from the hall, his little hobbit feet pattering on the ground as he ran. Once Sam had disappeared, Merry turned to Pippin. "We should give him some time alone."

"Very well," Pippin said, pulling more food onto his plate. He shrugged. "I suppose we'll have plenty of opportunity to check Frodo's health on the journey home."

Elladan, Elrohir and Loena left the hobbits to their eating, and found a swarth of chairs near where Elrond sat, high above the congregation. They served only light meals, for the heavier feast would be served later on in the night.

It was a night of celebration, it seemed, for after the food had been finished, Loena and her new acquaintances exited the hall and made a slow pilgrimage through Rivendell, where the Elves had gathered to make merry. Loena had always thought the Elves very distant, and very stern, but among them she saw how they laughed, and teased. There was still a brevity to the proceedings, and the feeling of a great unfolding of history.

Many great songs, some ill, and some full of cheer, were sung by the elves that night.

Elladan and Elrohir, wearied by their travels, left her a few hours before the moon had reached its zenith. Loena was left to walk around and watch the elves, dwarves and hobbits talk and laugh under the grand expanse of stars. She felt very obviously alone, and awkward. She was kept from racing back to her bedchambers, however, by a deep feeling of awe.

A great table had been set, full to creaking of the fine food of the Elves. Around her, soft lights emanated from the sides of houses, set in metal and stone with the magic of the Elves. The stars overhead were as bright as candlelight. They were so real, and so near, that she felt as though she might reach up and touch them. All around her the Elves rose their voices together in song. She was caught up in it, and felt so blessed to be witnessing it.

She was still relieved to be saved by Arwen, who called her over.

The Evenstar was sitting with her father, and the tall, dark man Elrohir and Elladan had named Estel, Strider, and Aragorn, at the end of the mighty table upon which they'd eat at the late night feast. Despite his height, and the stern set of his mouth, he bowed to her upon her introduction, and his eyes had smile, and kindness, in them.

"I have been often to Rohan, my lady," Strider said, after she had taken her seat beside Arwen. "Though I have not been recently."

"Ah, then you must come to Edoras, and feast with us in Meduseld," Loena said, smiling. "For there is nowhere on this earth that can measure to the wit and friendliness of my people." She paused, and then towards Elrond, she said, "Hospitality, however, is the domain of the Rivendell Elves, my Lord."

Elrond smiled, and Arwen laughed a tinkering, brook laugh that lifted Loena's spirits. "Flattery must be that which belongs to the Rohirrim, as well."

"Lord Aragorn—" Loena started, curious about the many names he carried, but Arwen interrupted, eyes locked across the way.

"_Ada_," she said, eyes widening. "Does the Ringbearer sit there?" She looked surprised, but pleased. "Has he recovered his strength so quickly?"

The small party turned to look, and all saw a small hobbit, dark of hair, hastily avert his eyes as if caught out. He was accompanied by a much older Dwarf, who sat perhaps a foot taller than the hobbit, and seemed content sitting and talking almost entirely to himself.

"Ah, yes," Elrond nodded. "He has a remarkable gift of spirit." For Loena's benefit, he said; "This is Frodo Baggins. He was the Hobbit impaled by the Nazgúl's blade."

After a turn, Loena again had an opportunity to speak with the dark Ranger. The conversation had dimmed, and the food before them had been mostly finished.

She caught his attention, and described her curiosity.

"Elladan and Elrohir told me that it was a story worth hearing," Loena told him, once she'd secured his attention. She looked to Arwen and Elrond, who were talking to each other in Elvish, and back to Frodo, who'd kept stealing glances down their end of the table. "What did they mean by that?"

Aragorn regarded her for a moment. "Have you eaten to your full?"

She frowned, glancing first down at her emptied plate, then back to Aragorn. "I am, though—"

"There is somewhere in Rivendell that will make this tale easier," Aragorn told her, and as he stood, she found herself standing with him. Curiosity coursed through her veins, lighter and more compelling than wine.

The two made their leave, bowing to Arwen and Elrond, skirting along the edges of the hall.

It was not a long walk, and Loena recognised where they were once they had passed over the threshold of the hall. It was the gallery Arwen had showed her earlier that day, with the shards of Elendil's sword, still sharp, lain on a bed of velvet. It was dark in there now, without the soft light from the sun filtering in. It made it difficult to see the great painting on the wall, a scene she now recognised well. The severing of the dark lord's fingers, the success of the free people of middle earth.

Loena strained her eyes to make it out. The ring on Sauron's fingers, gold and stark against the black of his gloved fingers, caught her attention. It had a script on it, a strange demonic language painted in a hateful red.

"I see you have spotted Sauron's master weapon," Aragorn said, following her gaze. "The One Ring."

"I keep thinking I recognise some of the characters, but I do not." Loena frowned, turning her head slightly. "This world…Night? Perhaps? Though, my tutor would have had me whipped if I had formed my letters like this."

"_And in the darkness bind them_," Aragorn corrected her, voice soft. "It is not in any form of Elvish known by Free men today. This is the language of Morgoth, the dead, evil words of Mordor." He glanced down at her, with something akin to admiration. "This cursed language aside, I did not know of the Rohirrim to teach their children Sindarin."

"I can read it a little," Loena shrugged. "I can't speak it, or understand it when spoken, though. I was educated in Gondor, for a time, and my tutor insisted. It is their first language, after all."

Aragorn laughed at that. "I have not known Gondor to speak much other than Westron."

"Neither have I," Loena smiled. Her tutor had spoken Sindarin, and so had the highborn nobles her tutor had also taught. Sometimes Loena would wander the city and hear the odd snatch of a Sindarin phrase. It was only really a language learnt for the status learning it brought.

From there, Aragorn bid her sit on one of the stone chairs around them. Using the painting, and the sword, he explained that he was the heir to Isildur, prophesised to wield Isildur's sword once more, and that his coming would restore the age of kings to Gondor. He showed her the ring Elrond had given him when his fate had been told to him, he told her of the Númenorians he travelled with in the North, and how their line had dwindled.

"When the hobbit called you a Ranger from the North, I thought I must have been ill when my mind pressed that point to me," Loena said, voice barely a whisper. She regarded Aragorn anew, standing before the portrait of his ancestor. His regal face and stern countenance made sudden sense to her now. "The line restored…" she drifted and shook her head. "I cannot imagine the joy of Gondor."

Aragorn sensed something awry in her mood. "What moves you, my lady?"

"Nothing to concern you with, Aragorn," she assured him. "I am my mother's daughter, is all. My family, for generations, have concerned ourselves with little more than restoring the glory of our house." She smiled. "I think I know now why Gandalf intended for us to meet."

"The house of Baldor," Aragorn said, and she started with surprise. He looked as though he made to say something more, then hesitated, but then spoke; "And the daughter's who had inherited it."

She peered up at him, perplexed. "Is this some strange trick of kings? To know the fore-fathers of a person before them?"

Aragorn laughed again, and where Arwen's had been sweet and clear, his was deep and tolling. "Gandalf told me some about you, I must admit. And when I met you, I thought also of something Galadriel once said to me, about your line in Rohan, and how it tied to the restoring of a great age."

"You have met Galadriel?" Loena's head spun, and her words were light. "Galadriel mentioned _my _house to you?"

"We spoke of many things."

"I should hope to meet her, one day," Loena breathed. "And talk to her about Baldor myself."

Aragorn paused for a moment. "Your family has a long history, my Lady."

Loena tilted her head, confused. "Yes, but it is Baldor's name that I protect. Am I not to want to speak to her of him?"

Aragorn tightened the muscles around his jaw, just once, but masked it well with a smile. "Of course! And If you remain friends with Gandalf, that may become available to you," He looked around, and Loena realised the lateness of the hour. "I should take my leave, my Lady. The Hall of Fire shall be an enticing alternative to sleep tonight. I dare not miss it."

"I dare, I am afraid," Loena said, feeling exhaustion push down on her eyelids.

They walked together for a little way, and separated as Loena made for her bed, and Aragorn for the light and laughter of the Elvish celebrations.

As she made her way alone through the night, the sounds of movement stilled her, just for a moment. She paused and waited, hearing the distinct sound of a horse breathing heavily. She turned instinctively on her heel and made her way silently towards the sound, curious at who could have been riding so late in the evening. She heard, as she crept, a man give a tired laugh of relief.

"If only we'd put more trust into maps," the man said, and when Loena came to the corner, she saw him clasp his horse on its neck, smiling tiredly. She recognised him as a Gondorian, adorned in their dark colours, his hair and colouring their noble stature. She no longer warried of him, and walked out confidently toward him.

He spotted her soon thereafter, and called to her with a smile; "Hello! Do you come to welcome us? Though to my eyes you are no elf."

"Discerning eyes, despite the dark," Loena said, stopping just beside the new arrival. She instinctively held her hand out for the horse to nuzzle. It nickered softly, steam rising off its back where the sweat of hard riding met the cool, brisk evening air. "I am a woman, of Men. And you, sir, have an exhausted horse."

"You are not the look of Gondor," the man said. "Golden hair is rare in our lands."

"Loena, Lady of Rohan," Loena said, and bowed to him.

"Boromir," he nodded back. "Captain Gondor. I'd find our host and apologise for the lateness, but I fear I'll be waking him."

"There would be no chance of that, I have it on good authority that they will all be up for many more hours," she said absently, studying his face. She recognised him, deeply, from somewhere. She could not shake the feeling. Loena started, remembering a young boy with auburn hair, a polite smile and bored eyes. "Ah! We have met before!."

Boromir's eyes widened. "We have?"

"Are you the son of your Steward?"

Boromir nodded slowly. "Indeed, I am."

Loena pulled back from the horse, and pushed it, slightly, as its head followed her. She grinned, feeling oddly nostalgic for her time in Gondor. "Yes! I met you every year that I arrived in Gondor for my learning. You would have been young, and you would have met many like me."

"I remember very well how my brother and I were coerced into those long meetings," Boromir chuckled. "We shook the hands of many people, my Lady. I apologise that your face is not one that I remember."

"I would have been more surprised if you had," she assured him. Movement stirred behind her, and she turned to survey it. Behind her was an accumulating gathering of elves. One, she just recognised, was Glorfindel, a blonde elf with a cheerful face, and then next to him a female elf she didn't recognise. Another arrived behind them just as she watched. "It seems as though your proper welcome entourage has arrived. With that, I will make for my bed."

"Shall I see you tomorrow, Lady?" Boromir called as she began to pull away. "I was worried I would only have the company of elves during my time here. I am glad to see that I am wrong."

"You come for the council, do you not?" Loena asked, attempting shrewdness.

Loena had thought herself clever, but Boromir seemed to have no instant understanding of the council she spoke of. "I do not, though if there is a council, then I will make it my mission to attend."

"Then our meeting is quite likely," Loena said. She turned on her heel and began to walk. "Farewell, Boromir of Gondor!"

The day of the council was one that started quite early. Loena hoisted herself from her bed to sit on her windowsill, legs kicking idly down against the wall. The sun was rising, its light a pale, lingering yellow over the city before her. From where she was sitting, she could see another elf walking through the courtyard below her feet. He had a green and brown garb, and star coloured hair. She gazed upon him for a minute; as he first paused to look at the sun, then as he reached up his hand as if to greet it, and then finally dropped her gaze as he walked off, bow in tow, in the direction of the archery field Arwen had shown her the day before.

Loena was struck with apprehension for the Council. There was so much still to know – she knew of Strider and his origins, she knew that races from around Middle Earth had come today, she knew that she had been brought as a friend of Gandalf's. She knew Saurman and Sauron were stoking the fires of war, she knew that Gandalf thought she had a part to play, and she knew that she felt, desperately and bravely, that she had a big part to play as well.

She missed her mother, and her home. The sunrise here was, though beautiful, as cold as the light of the moon. It felt paled against the golden heat of her homeland. As the moments progressed, the little courtyard below her filled up more and more.

She found herself watching two Dwarves, one whom she'd seen speaking with Frodo the night before, and another whom looked similar enough to him in stature and colouring that it could have been his son. From her vantage point, she was too distant to see if youth could be discerned from his face. Nonetheless, they too, walked off before she could make any final, firm judgments.

"My Lady?" A voice startled her from behind, and she felt herself tipping back, losing her grip on the window and crumpling to the floor of her room. "My Lady!"

The voice rushed towards her, and helped her sit upright. It was the same female elf who'd brought her to her rooms the night before. Loena's cheeks blazed when she realised how unheroic she'd managed to make herself look.

"Are you alright?" the elf asked quickly, fussing over Loena's hair, which had fallen into her face, and her tunic, which had twisted itself around her body in the excitement.

"Fine, fine," Loena waved her off quickly, and hurried to her feet. She swayed a little, the blood rushing down from her head. "Ah…sorry. I'm feeling a bit lightheaded."

"You have time for a quick breakfast before the council," the elf told her. Loena wished she could remember her name, though she supposed it was too late to ask her now. "Shall I bring it up? Or are you feeling strong enough to come eat it in the Dining Hall?"

"I'll come down!" Loena nearly squeaked. She did her best to compose herself. She cleared her throat. "Thank you, no. I will dress for the Council and come down. Thank you for coming to find me."

The Elf bowed and moved to the door, but was stopped by another of her kin. "Merewen," the newcomer said, greeting Loena's friend.

Loena hastily memorised "_Merewen_", tracing the name soundlessly with her lips as she did so.

"Elrond has requested you accompany the Lady Arwen today—"

"Of course," Merewen said, inclining her head. She looked back to Loena worriedly. "Will you be alright to get to the Dining Hall by yourself?"

"Yes," Loena said tetchily. She remembered her manners and inclined her head. "Thank you."

Both disappeared, and Loena ran her hands over her face, steeling herself. She must already look like a child to these people, barely 25 summers old, and a head shorter than almost every other elf she'd met. She needed to do better. She was the representative of her people here. They could not think Rohan weak, they _would _not.

Rohan was a young country still, carved out of an old dominion of Gondor. Ever it dwelled in Gondor's shadow, and for thousands of years, it had remained content there. For the Golden Age Galadriel had predicted to come, there could be no missteps, or falling awkwardly off windowsills.

Loena cursed herself, kicked angrily at the floor, and made her way down, moodily, to breakfast.

The council had already begun to gather when Loena arrived. She watched them all with increasing trepidation and smoothed her hand over the front of her dress self-consciously. The elves wore silken robes, with high buttons, in colours of silver, blue and gold. The dwarves wore armour that shone in the sunlight, and their beards had been plaited and groomed for the council. She saw that Boromir, whom she could see had dark hair and grey eyes in the morning light, outshone her as well, with a leather tunic with the standard of Gondor, the white tree, emblazoned across the front. Across his back was strung a mighty horn, white and silver.

She brushed her hair across the back of her shoulders and lifted her chin, stalking into the gathering confidently. Some looked at her as she passed, but most continued on with their conversations. She beelined for Boromir, who had already chosen a seat.

"Lady of Rohan," he nodded to her as she approached. "I must confess, I did not expect to see any women in attendance here today."

"I did not expect to see you here at all," Loena said back, ignoring the sting. She suddenly felt oddly as though she were representing both her entire country, as well as her entire sex. "I thought you'd be sleeping off your journey."

"It was a long one, aye," Boromir nodded. "Though I think I have energy enough to sustain me through this meeting."

"I hope it should not be so dull as to send you to sleep," Loena said, smiling her jest.

Boromir laughed. "I fear it won't be, though I hope it is. If Elrond is to ascend, and tell us that Sauron has come to him, and said 'I shall fight no more!' I will be a contented man."

"Contented and probably sleeping," Loena said.

Aragorn arrived next, not in the garb of the elves, but in simple clothes made of cheap cloth. Loena realised that these must be the clothes worn by the Rangers as they spent their lives on the moors. It suited him well, strangely, and he seemed more comfortable in them than the kingly robes Elrond had dressed him in during his stay. Loena felt suddenly much better about her own garb, and eased the jaw that she hadn't realised she'd been clenching.

She nodded to Aragorn, and smiled, and he did the same to her.

Elrond arrived after that, greeting all he passed, and ringing the bell that called for the beginning of the council.

A strange hush descended, and all turned to see Gandalf arrive with Frodo, and a much older, and far more confident, hobbit. Frodo baulked at the attention, and remained close beside Gandalf, peering at each of the people around him with equal parts curiosity and nervousness. Loena and Boromir spoke amicably until Elrond arose, each took to their seats, and the council began.

He presented Frodo first, sat in a position of honour by his side. "Here, my friends, is the Hobbit, Frodo son of Drogo. Few have ever come hither through greater peril or on an errand more urgent."

For the benefit of the council, he announced each person who gathered there. The elf Loena had seen in the courtyard was named "Legolas", and he came from Mirkwood on an errand from his King father. The Dwarves she had seen, first talking to Frodo, and then walking together below her at sunrise, were named Glóin and Gimli, and she had been right to presume Gimli Glóin's son. The older Hobbit who'd accompanied Frodo was called "Bilbo", and shared Frodo's last name that Loena presumed him Frodo's uncle, or grandfather. Boromir was introduced as a man from the south, and she as a Shield-Maiden of Rohan.

From there, the council commenced.

Glóin spoke first; a long tale about the current troubles of the dwarves at their home in the Lonely Mountain. He spoke of the silence from their cousins in the mountain home of Moria.

Elrond acknowledged his tale with a grimness. "You have done well to come. You will hear today all that you need in order to understand the purposes of the enemy. Here is naught that you can do, other than resist, with hope or without it. But you do not stand alone. You will learn that your trouble is but part of the trouble of all the western world. The Ring!"

There was a collective murmuring, and Loena's eyes widened. The _Ring_ of Sauron? The one Aragorn's ancestor had struck from the hand of its master?

"That is the reason you were called hither," Elrond said, and Loena shifted in her seat, mind whirling. "Now, therefore, things shall be openly spoken that have been hidden from all but a few until this day. And first, so that all may understand what is the peril, the Tale of the Ring shall be told from the beginning even to this present. And I will begin that tale, though others will end it."

Loena knew much of the first part of the story from her instruction in History in Gondor, from the songs sung in Meduseld, and from her mother's own understanding, passed down generation to generation across her family. The forging of the rings to the mustering of Elves and Men under Gil-galad and Elendil, to the triumph of Isildur.

"Isildur took it, as should not have been," Elrond said, with all the same cold bitterness as he must've felt that night. "It should have been cast then into the fire, but he took to treasure it, and claimed it for the sake of his people. But soon the Ring betrayed him to his death; and so the Northerners name it Isildur's Bane."

Loena was perplexed, eyes wide, looking around the council and seeing only the Dwarves and the son of Gondor beside her as visibly moved as she. The tale had never ended, but Loena had always presumed that the Ring had been destroyed, or buried.

"The Ring was lost," Elrond said, as if reading her thoughts. "But not unmade. The Dark Tower was broken, but while the Ring survives, so too does the power of Mordor.

"Frodo, bring forth the ring."

Loena's eyes fixated, unblinking, on the sight of Frodo walking timidly across the way, depositing the Ring onto the table between them all, and hurrying back. Loena stared at the thing; a small, simple band of gold. It seemed so unbelievably small, so recklessly tiny. No wonder it had been lost.

The sun glinted off the gold, but Loena dared not blink. She swore she heard something call to her, beg to her, to take the ring, return to Rohan, establish herself and save her people. The call was so strong she had to dig her fingers into the side of her chair to escape it.

Beside her, Loena heard Boromir gasp. "So it is true," he whispered, softly, and with reverence. He called to his feet, and his movement shocked Loena away from her staring at the Ring. "It is a gift! A gift to the Foes of Mordor! In this evil hour I have come on an errand over many dangerous leagues to Elrond; a hundred and ten days I have travelled alone, following the mission given to my brother in a dream. This Ring must be the dream's intent." He moved nearer to it, and stared to it, as entranced as Loena had been.

From the corner of the room, a great darkness gathered and spread, and from where he was sitting, Gandalf began to chant a deep, twisted, disturbing language. Loena felt her stomach clench, and her nails dug further into the wood of her chair. Gandalf roared out, and each around Loena were equally affected, bowing their heads and holding their hands by the sides of their face.

As the darkness passed, and Gandalf sat once more, Elrond looked to Gandalf, agitated.

"I do not ask your pardon, Master Elrond, for the Black Speech of Mordor may yet be heard from every corner of the West!" Gandalf cried.

"Why not use the Ring?" Agitated, insistent, Boromir was unperturbed and faced the council fearlessly. "Long has my father, the Steward of Gondor, kept the forces of Mordor at bay. By the blood of our people are your lands kept safe! Give Gondor the weapon of the enemy. Let us use it against him!"

Aragorn, so silent for the duration of the council, spoke now, his voice clear and commanding. "You cannot wield it! The Ring answers to Sauron alone, it has no other master."

Loena felt the truth of his words, and yet, and _yet_, the ring called to her, stirring something deep inside her.

"What would a Ranger know of this?" Boromir turned, and Loena saw the true anger in the tightness of his neck.

"_Boromir_," she snapped.

"This is no mere ranger," the green-brown Elf introduced as Legolas stood sharply. He glared down Boromir. "This is Aragorn, son of Arathorn, you own him your allegiance."

Aragorn murmured something in elvish Loena couldn't understand, but Legolas seemed to obey it, taking back to his seat.

"Gondor has no king," Boromir said sourly. "It needs no king." He turned around, and looked at each gathered with a deep disappointment. "You neglect us, you neglect the sacrifice we've made. Each of you have no idea of the amount of blood spilt of my lands to keep evil at bay."

"The blood of _your lands_?" Loena snarked from her seat, pulling her gaze from the Ring. "The hour grows dire from every corner of the world, and every race of Men faces the growing threat. It is not the blood of Gondor, son of Denethor, that repels the powers of Orthanc. It is not the deaths of Gondor, but _Rohan_, that have been occurring with increasing regularity as your lordless father turns his blind eye. Rohan and Gondor swore an oath once, and now you have left us to wallow away."

"It is not for Gondor to secure the wild lands of wild people," Boromir seemed shocked by her outburst, but spat his retort nonetheless. "Sauron has more than occupied our talents, Lady."

Loena leapt to her feet. "Wild?" She snarled. "Who could help be wild when left without the powers that once swore to protect you? Wildness is all that protects us, Denethor's son!"

"If Gondor had the ring, Rohan would benefit," Boromir snapped back, tetchily. "We could turn our attention to you, then. Fulfil our oath."

"Fulfil your oath by allowing us the ring," Loena insisted. She turned now to the council. "Taking the ring to Gondor only serves to near it to the Great Eye. If we take it to Rohan, we separate it further from the shadows of Mordor, and can command it to rid the world of his most vile accomplice, Saruman."

"Saruman is not the threat we speak of here today," Boromir snapped.

"We speak of both," Loena countered, pushing her hair from her face and staring into the face of the great Lord of Gondor, refusing to drop her chin.

"_QUIET_!" A great call came from the edge of the circle, and Loena and Boromir were shocked into compliance. There Gandalf stood, looking at both with undisguised disappointment. "The weakness and the squabbling of men was the domain of your ancestors. The friendship of free Men is essential to victory against Sauron, of that there is no doubt. There is _no fight now_, between Gondor and Rohan."

Loena refused to dip her head, and she saw that Boromir's pride had kept him rigid as well. Neither opened their mouths again, though, and both, eventually, came back to their chairs.

"Aragorn is right," Gandalf continued. "None here can use it."

"The Ring must be destroyed," Elrond agreed.

"Well, what are we waiting for?!" Gimli, Glóin's son, attacked the ring with his axe and a great battle cry. The Ring seemed to shriek when struck, but it was the axe that lay all about, destroyed. The Ring stayed as faultless as ever.

Elrond spoke out. "No weapon of man, Elf or Dwarf can destroy the One Ring, Gimli, son of Glóin. It must be cast back into the chasms where it was made, for only there can it be unmade." Elrond looked out level out at the council. "One of you must do this."

"Mordor?" Boromir spoke again, aghast. "One does not simply walk into Mordor. It's black gates are guarded by more than just orcs. There is an evil there that does not sleep. Not with ten thousand men could you do this."

The blond elf who'd leapt to Aragorn's defence scowled and stood once more, ire tuned on Boromir. "Have you heard nothing that Lord Elrond has said? The ring must be destroyed!"

Gloin's son, Gimli, took the offence for himself. "And I suppose you think you're the one to do it!"

Boromir was not one to take such an affront without comment. "And if we fail, what then? What happens when Sauron takes back what is _his_?"

"A gift for Rohan!" The voice of the Ring in Loena's mind began to reach a screeching crescendo. It was all she could hear, and see. It blinded her, bit at her, called to her. The One Ring wanted _her _to wield it, it wanted to return to Rohan with her, it wanted to help her discover her family's honour. Loena leapt to her feet, Gandalf's chiding forgotten. "A gift to the foes of Orthanc! Of Mordor!"

"For _Gondor_!" Boromir insisted, mouth twisted, glaring at her.

Gimli had his scowl settled on the young elven prince. "I will be dead before I see the ring in the hands of an _Elf_!"

The elves around Legolas drew themselves up in outrage, and Gloin's party stood to match them. Loena and Boromir reprised much of their earlier argument, nearly nose to nose in their anger.

"...will take it!" A slight voice said, cutting through the rabble. All turned, and Loena saw Frodo Baggins standing, determined, hands twisted in apprehension in the fabric of his pants. "I will take the Ring to Mordor."

All were silent. All gazed at the Hobbit, such a small thing, with wonder. Loena doubted his legs were long enough to spur a pony. She felt her heart turn.

"Though," he added, looking to Gandalf. "I do not know the way."

Gandalf placed his hand on Frodo's shoulder, and swore his assistance on Frodo's journey.

Next came Aragorn, noble, but with soft eyes.

"If by life or death I can protect you," he said, kneeling. "I will. You have my sword."

The blonde Elven princeling stepped forward. "And you have my bow."

Loena wondered his reasoning, wondered what had prompted him to now resist returning to his Homeland and commit himself to the fate of the ring. She realised that Mordor's spread would not start and end with the pillaging of Gondor.

She'd known it always, but now she felt it sharply. Even if Saruman were to be defeated, the glorious ever-Sun of the Riddermark would be confined to darkness.

And that might have been her honourable rationale, and it might have tipped her to step forward. But it was not why she wanted to go. The Ring called for her again, and she envisioned herself standing before Edoras, before a Free Nation of Men, all loyal and adoring of her.

"And my ax," the same dwarf that had challenged Legolas stepped forward.

Loena realised that this was a moment of Keen diversity. So far a Hobbit, then a Dunedàn, then an elf of the Mirkwood realm, and now a dwarf. A unification of the free worlds.

As if realising the same thing, Boromir made his way slowly to the little Hobbit. "You carry the fate of us all, little one," he said softly. He turned back, finding the eyes of Elrond. "If this is indeed the will of the council, then Gondor will see it done."

Loena stepped forward. She felt the great host turns its eyes to her.

"Rohan also," she said firmly. Like all others she came before Frodo. She held her hand over her heart, and then pressed it to his shoulder. "This is a burden, and a glory, that must be endured by all races of free men. By the strength of my line, my house, my kin and my own bones, I will protect your passage."

There was a huff, and the bustle of breaking twigs, and Sam burst out onto the council. "Mr Frodo is not goin' anywhere without me!"

Pippin and Merry also declared their intention to join, emerging from their hiding spot with the same determined look on their small faces.

"Ten companions," Elrond said, watching them all with a reverent gaze. "Not since the days of Elendil has there been such a united company of free folk. So be it! You shall be the Fellowship of the Ring!"


	7. The Final Gasp

Loena hacked her frustrations out on the straw target in front of her. Her sword – a blunt training blade from the elves armoury – thwacked against its sides with a satisfying whump. She drew back, breathing hard, and pushed her hair back from her face. The memory of Boromir's irreverence during the council resurfaced, and she let out a howl of frustration, hitting into the target again and again and again.

"I do no know what dishonour this thing showed you, but I'm sure it regrets it," A voice called behind her, and Loena turned to see the very face of her frustrations make himself known.

Boromir crossed the grasses in front of her, his own training sword in hand.

"I fear it is standing in place of the true source of my frustrations," Loena snarled back, staring Boromir down, eyes narrowed.

"And I fear that he might have as much reason to be frustrated with you," Boromir said coolly.

Both stood in a rigid, determined silence. Neither, it seemed, would be the first to apologise.

After the council had ended, and all the first arrangements had been made, Loena and Boromir had left the group without speaking to the other. It hadn't gone unnoticed by the others, who'd watched the spectacle with apprehension. Loena wanted to fill them with hope that they'd be a cohesive and well-worked whole of a Fellowship, but she needed time alone to forget what Boromir had said.

"I came to train alone," Loena said, words barbed.

"As did I," Boromir said, tight. "Though it seems that in this case, and in many cases, we do not receive what we would choose."

Loena bristled, and set to ignore him, turning to release more of her pent up frustrations on the target in front of her.

"You hold your sword well," Boromir said, and Loena wanted to turn to remind him that she had decided not to speak to him. "Where did you learn? And by whom?"

"Mostly Edoras, though I served under the tutelage of a great many masters," Loena replied, despite herself. She did not say that most of the skill she'd developed had been when she'd been ignored, time and time again, for service, training herself desperately in the dead of the night. "And I suppose my swordsmanship is good for a _wild _people."

Boromir said nothing. Loena turned to face him and saw that his face had turned grave. She tightened her jaw, said nothing more, and turned back to her target. She unleashed all her anger in the next strike, which sent the target wobbling.

"We leave for Mordor in a matter of weeks," Boromir said. "Not all our targets will be standing still."

"Do you not _know _when someone wishes to be left alone?" Loena yelled, turning on him, clutching her practice blade as if it were a real one. "If you have just come to insult me, come back when I am not so angry at you that I might strike."

"I worry for your safety on this quest," Boromir said, though she could see he was trying to rile her, trying to get her to do something.

"I have fought orcs, and defended my land from the forces of Saruman for a long time," Loena spat. "I have killed them as they've run, and as they've stood, and as they've charged. _This_," she wrenched her sleeve, and showed him a long scar running from her shoulder. "Is courtesy of an orc when I was 18 summers old. And _this_," she swung her sword at his middle impulsively, and was as shocked by her own action as she was at how deftly he caught her blade with his own.

She looked up at him, eyes hard, refusing to relent.

"You want to spar?" he guessed, pulling his sword back, but keeping it defensive.

Loena matched his stance. She smiled, a small, feral, dangerous smile. It would, at least, keep her from destroying Rivendell's equipment. "Do _you_?"

He lunged forward, and she deflected it, moving forward just as he moved back. They stood still again. She lunged this time, and their swords snapped against each other, scraping as attempts were parried and slices fell short.

This time, when Boromir lunged, Loena left no time for recover, and they stepped across the ground, striking and parrying at each other as they went. Loena was shorter than him, and slighter, and used her agility to her advantage, moving more than he, dictating the terms of the pace and movement of the battle. Boromir was bigger, and much stronger, and his thrusts were exhausting to stop.

They found themselves face to face, swords locked. Both struggled for dominance, Boromir's breath was hot on her face.

"I am sorry to hear about how your people fare," Boromir said, and the tension went slack. "I did not know."

Loena paused, a roll of guilt forming in her stomach. She loosened her hold, and the momentum now gone, both pulled back. "I apologise too, my Lord." She stiffened her jaw and looked down at the ground. She felt oddly like she did with É'''''omer, where she couldn't look into his eyes. Only now it was shame which brought her head down. "Long has been the suffering in this war, and great. Gondor knows that best of all."

He clasped her on the shoulder. "You fight well, maiden. I will be glad of your sword on this journey."

"You fight…adequately," Loena said sweetly, though she knew his swordsmanship out-rivalled her own. Orcs had no skill with the blades they were given, and made up for their incompetence with numbers and savagery. They were easy to kill after a bit of study. Boromir would look like a prince of old fighting in a battle. None would have been able to touch him.

"Adequately," Boromir repeated, raising an eyebrow.

"You fight very well, as well," she allowed, and he smiled. She pulled her sword to her side. "I apologise if I have seemed strained, Lord. Things have been every present in my mind since we arrived here; terrible things, frightening things."

"I feel them too," Boromir consoled her. "It is a difficult thing, to be a man in the age of elves, orcs and deep magic. But come, let us be friends now, as Gondor and Rohan have been for many an age."

"Friends," Loena agreed.

"Friends do help others with their swordsmanship, if they like," Boromir offered. "There are _some _things I noticed—"

"Do not push your luck, Gondor," Loena warned him. Though she paused, "Perhaps we can revisit this conversation when my pride has healed itself a little."

Boromir laughed a great, booming laugh. "As you require, Lady of the Shield-Hand."

Time passed strangely in Rivendell, both an eternity and a day in every moment of blinking. The fellowship was stalled from leaving as the elves, Aragorn and Gandalf set off to discover what signs they could of the nine Nazgúl riders. Elrond had expressed a disappointment that the Fellowship had 10 walkers, rather than 9, to match the Nazgúl number with their own, but neither Pippin nor Merry could be compelled to journey home to the Shire. None approached Sam, for out of all of them, he seemed the most determined to go.

With Aragorn, Elrohir, Elladan and Gandalf gone, Loena had far fewer people to spend her time with. Arwen was a kind presence, but she too was often busy, picking up the running of Rivendell as her father became preoccupied with the passage of the ring and the current hunt for the Ringwraiths.

Merewen was also someone Loena could speak with, and she found that the elf was adept at improving Loena's (almost non-existent) elvish. She could now utter full phrases (though they were confined to "well met", "a thousand greetings", "thank you" and "farewell").

She spent most of her time with the hobbits, who were as transfixed by her tales of the éored, the halls of her forefathers and the horses she had ridden, as she was of their long journey to Rivendell, their complicated family trees, and the rolling hills and little meadows of the shire.

She had made it her mission to get them to consent to wearing leather boots for their journey, but none had budged.

"No hobbit needs shoes," Pippin told her firmly.

"From the way you describe it, hobbits don't need shoes because your home is built upon a never-ending bed of soft grass," Loena said emphatically.

"I won't!" Pippin declared. "Master Bilbo didn't on his journey to the Lonely Mountain, and if did not have to, then I don't either."

Loena eventually did give up, though, much to the amusement of Legolas, and the grumblings of Gimli, who'd had bet money on the outcome. She resolved to pack extra bandages to wrap their feet in for when they'd eventually get splinters.

But more and more, Loena worked alongside the Gondorian captain, finally biting her pride long enough to learn from him. He was a terrifying swordsman, and even the Elves who practiced alongside them would listen in as he instructed Loena.

Sometimes even the Hobbits would join. The one who was the most determined was Merry, who was the tallest and strongest, and Frodo, who'd come each time with a beautiful elven made blade. On those days, both she and Boromir would instruct. They worked well together as a team, even if they did get frustrated at each other too much to be properly companionable outside the sparring range.

Sometimes he'd remind Loena strongly of Éomer, in manner and attitude, that she'd get a deep pang of longing to be with him again. Those were the days she dreaded the most. Waiting gave her too much time to think, and miss things. Those were the days where she welcomed the journey ahead, and did not fear it.

Glorfindel and Gandalf were the first to return after their hunt for the Nazgúl. They each had worryingly little news, but their return was enough to lift Loena's spirits. It also gave her something new to distract herself with, for Gandalf was, for the first time since arriving, free to speak with Loena at length.

One day, not soon after he had arrived back, she walked with Gandalf through the pine woods on the outskirts of Rivendell. As they strolled they he spoke to her of a great many things.

"Now," he'd said, greeting her one morning at the Dining Hall. "Is the time for me to answer all your questions."

She asked a little about Aragorn, and Elvish and Dwarfish companions, of whom she had seen little of. Both spent most of their time with their own kin.

"Legolas is an elf of Mirkwood. He is the son of Thranduil, who is Elven Lord there," Gandalf said. "Legolas is strange like the way the Elves sometimes are, but he is brave, and true. Him and the Lord Aragorn have been friends for many a year. Gimli is the son of Glóin, and nephew to Balin, lord of Moria. He is, like all dwarves, a lover of fine stone and jewel, but more than that, he is loyal beyond measure."

Loena had been gratified by this, but had also wondered how Gandalf had described her to those curious of her. The more she remained in Rivendell, the more she realised the smallness of a nation like Rohan to the creatures who had walked the earth an age before it had even been founded. She wondered if, to them, like her country, she was young and inexperienced.

More and more, she watched the Elves and their impossible magic, saw the virility and experience of the Dwarves, and admired the exceptionality Boromir for the lineage he bore. And more and more she came to believe it herself.

She did not like that thought, and banished it quickly.

They talked some about the Ring, about how it had been recovered by the older Hobbit, Bilbo, Loena had seen at the council. They talked about the fall of Isildur.

They talked much about the history of the Riddermark, and the kings that dwelt there.

"Do you know much of those final battles with the Dunlendings before the first Rohirric Golden Age?" Gandalf asked.

"Well, a little," Loena said. "I know Baldor had just perished. And I know that the Dunlendings swore an oath of revenge."

"Nothing, then, on the Marshalls of the Mark? Or any of the heroes?"

Loena tilted her head. "I know they sing a song for Beornia for her feats during one of the final battles, and she was my ancestor." She sighed. "And I know Baldor _would _have been a great hero, had he been given the chance." She looked up. "Perhaps he would have ended the war much faster."

"Perhaps," Gandalf allowed.

Loena adored discussing her nation's history, and pushed the conversation for as long as she could. Her family had always been pedantic about memorising the historical peculiarities of their country. It was their way to ensure they were more knowledgeable than any other who might discredit their claim to Baldor's lineage.

"And thus concludes your nation's history," Gandalf said, as they came to the top of the hill. The had come to stand atop a great stone, a look-out over the valley. From their vantage point, they could see Rivendell sparkling like a jewel under the sunlight, the streams and rivers that poured in to feed it, and the ever-green hills around them. It smelt fresh, like the morning after a night of rain. It was near winter, but Loena had found Rivendell strangely warm. Even now, walking through the woods, she'd only needed her cloak to keep her warm.

"An abridged version, perhaps," Loena said, turning away from the view to grin ruefully in Gandalf's direction. "We have only been talking for an hour or so, after all."

Gandalf chuckled. "True enough." He paused. "I am quite glad to see you here, so well, and so willing, Loena. You have changed little since you were small. I remember how eager you were, and how committed to justice."

Deeply touched, Loena bowed her head. "Thank you, Mithrandir."

"Ah! There's the Elven influence on you I was so concerned about!" He looked at her, and she smiled, abashed, and looked back to the view before them. "We must get you back to Rohan, and soon. I've heard nothing about horses from you since I got back."

Loena wrinkled her nose. "We speak of matters other than just _horses_."

"Oh?" Gandalf asked, eyes twinkling.

"Ale," Loena supplied bluntly. "And…well, the _breeding _of horses, which is quite separate from horses in general. And…" She scrunched her nose. "Well, I'm sure we speak of other things, but I can't quite think of any right now."

"You are quite easy to tease, Loena," Gandalf told her.

That prickled Loena's pride, but she knew better than to counter it, so she just sighed, and smirked, and watched Rivendell for a moment. From their distance, the Elves seemed like tiny ants, scurrying about their business. The thought of the Elves doing anything akin to "scurrying" made Loena smile.

"Tell me, Gandalf," Loena said, turning to him. "You have told me that the lady Galadriel foresaw my line redeemed, but I fear I've been caught up in late of wondering what that redemption would _look _like. For Baldor to be redeemed, I feel as though I'd have to march to the very hallow in the mountain where he disappeared, and…" she trailed off.

"That frightens you?" Gandalf guessed.

Loena nodded, jaw tight, refusing to meet his eyes.

"Good," Gandalf said. "It should. The Paths of the Dead, and the doorway beneath the mountain, should not be trekked lightly. All living _should_ fear it. But I would not fear too readily, for I am not sure if it is your fate to go to the place of this ancestors' doom."

Loena frowned, unsure. "But if not for Dwimorberg—"

"Do not utter that mountain's name here!" Gandalf interrupted her, and around them a great breeze picked up, pushing at Loena's hair, picking at the bottom of her cloak. She looked around in fear, and wonder. "The rocks, the trees; near Rivendell they are awake, remembering and listening. That is not a name for good, growing things to know."

"Forgive me, Gandalf," Loena said. "I did not know."

"All is forgiven, Loena, daughter of Leofwine," Gandalf assured her. "Now, to contend with your question, I must tell you that what you ask of me is something, at its heart, that many have tried to answer since the dawn of man. You see, my dear, the nature of prophecy is that, more often than not, the truth shall only be revealed once the prophecy has been proven true."

Loena sighed heavily, nearly regretting agreeing to accompany Gandalf. She had not counted on feeling more hopeless than before. She felt frustration well up in her. "How am I, then, to know the next step to take?"

"I feel that that step has already been decided," Gandalf told her, calmly. "Once you swore your allegiance to the Fellowship, with the Fellowship you must go. Of course, no one will bind you to go further than you will, but for the beginning, at least, you shall travel with us. Your next step may make itself obvious to you as the journey progresses."

"I hope it does," Loena said, pulling her cloak around her as a chill breeze tumbled over the rock. She kicked at a rock, and watched as it bounced down through the trees. "I cannot see myself deserting the Ring, and Frodo also, without good reason."

"Noble you are, then, Loena, for many could see a plenty of reasons to turn around," Gandalf said, only gently chiding. "Perhaps that is where redemption lies, in the fiery heart of Sauron's lair."

"It does not seem like such a glorious thing," Loena admitted. "Assisting a Hobbit to unmake something in a volcano. Frodo would deserve the credit, not I. And all around us, wars would be fought and glory would be earnt by the sword, atop horses, pressing back against the endless hordes of evil. What would I be doing? Making the food of the Ringbearer! Hiding with him against the Great Eye."

"Though there will be plenty of opportunity for war along this mission, I beg you not to wish for it, Loena," Gandalf said, and Loena looked at him, surprised at how earnest he sounded, and how plaintive. "So many like your and your kin wish for war to recover honour once lost, and then find themselves killed before they have a chance to truly live their own lives. There are many heroes that dwell outside the domain of war."

"Perhaps," Loena said, unconvinced. "But is not of they that we sing songs."

Gandalf fell silent, not in defeat, Loena saw, but in a quiet meditation.

When he spoke again, it was with a strange sorrow. "Ah! But you are right. If only we celebrated those kings whom overlooked an eon of peace, than those who were triumphant in battle. I wonder if we would live in a more peaceful world," Gandalf shook his head. "Now, come. The walk back is a shorter one downhill, but it is still a ways. We shall be terribly hungry when we return if we are to delay any longer."

Both turned from the view and began the trek back down to Rivendell, each occupied by their own thoughts.

"I thought I might find you here," a melodic voice announced itself behind Loena, and the latter turned, shocked, and nearly fell out of her window again.

There at the doorway to her room stood Arwen, her skin luminous in the late afternoon light filtering through Loena's window.

Loena righted herself and swung her legs around quickly. "Hello, Lady Arwen."

"I had not seen you at a meal in all day," Arwen said softly, she entered the room and sat on Loena's bed. Loena drew up to her slowly. "I was worried."

Loena raised her eyebrows. "Worried? For me?"

"Yes," Arwen answered. "Do I worry needlessly?"

Loena nearly dismissed her with the affirmative, but something stopped her. She swallowed her retort, and came to sit by Arwen's side. She'd tied her long hair back in the style of the elves, with braids running down her back to keep the hair from her face. She had felt it useful, but now wished she had one of the tresses to distract herself with, twirling the soft curls around her fingers like a child.

"I do _not _worry needlessly," Arwen surmised from Loena's silence.

"I…" Loena started, but frowned, and set her mouth. "I am quite well, physically. And I do not fear what awaits me once I leave Rivendell—"

"Of course," Arwen soothed her. "None here doubt your valour."

"I do…" Loena frowned. "I have been hearing things, from the Elves, and from the Hobbits and the Dwarves. They speak of dangers upon our path, and the dangers awaiting us in Mordor. I…" she drew in a rough breath, massaging the back of her neck with a thumb. "I have this terrible habit of…well, I suppose what I'm trying to say, is that I worry that I will not return to my homeland."

"I have seen you fight," Arwen said soothingly. "You underestimate yourself. So long as your sword is sharp, you will see your lands again."

"Perhaps," Loena said, uncertain. "But against all the masses of Mordor, even the strongest swordsman can fall. And…" She struggled for the words. "Death, is not, precisely, what I fear."

"You fear being unable to return," Arwen supposed. "You fear being kept from that which you love."

"Yes," Loena said, curious at the emotion behind Arwen's words. "And those whom I love, as well."

Arwen nodded slowly. "I understand your dilemma, Loena. I truly do. There is love, real love, in this world that is worth losing much for."

Loena nodded, thinking of her farewell to her mother. How she'd briefly she'd held her face before departing, how determined and excited she'd been to leave. "I…" She stopped and started again. "There is another, as well, to whom my heart sings."

"Oh?" Arwen asked, leaning forward.

"He does not view me that way," Loena said dully, thinking of the distance Éomer seemed intent to place between them. So tall, so proud, so noble and good. She'd found herself thinking of him more and more after her walk with Gandalf. She wished to speak with him, to hear his view. "But I would regret it if I were to die, and did not tell him." She swallows down a wave of emotion rising from her belly. "I would regret it very much."

Arwen touched Loena's hand, and Loena lets her, feeling suddenly lighter. She had not cried, and she would not cry, but she felt, then suddenly, as if she had. As if all the weariness had been expunged, as if she had been scrubbed clean with a soft brush, and left out to dry in the sun.

"I will miss the friends I have made here, also," Loena said, before she could stop herself.

Arwen laughed, the same tinkling bell laugh Loena had heard before. "And they will miss you, Horse-Mistress.

They sat like that for a time, and their talk turned to things less important. Arwen told her of the day she first met Aragorn, upon her return to Imladris after living in Lothlórien. And she told her of the first time she had seen him and returned his affections. Arwen told her of their romantic escapades at the beginning of their union, when they'd hide from her father, or steal moments in the forest. She told her how Elrond had forbidden any union between them until Aragorn had become king and fulfilled his destiny.

"I thought it was the bride who supplied the dowry," Loena said, and Arwen laughed.

Loena did her best to conversate in kind, but between her and Éomer, there was little to tell. Arwen was attentive though, and by the end, the day had nearly ended, and the bell for dinner had begun to ring.

"Will you accompany me?" Arwen asked, standing.

Loena looked about her room. She'd studied everything in it for days on end. She knew it quite well now. The only thing that continued to entertain her, was the fresco above her head. It suddenly dawned on Loena that the very artist of the painting, as described to her on her first night, was standing in the room beside her.

"I will come," Loena said. "On one condition." Arwen perked an eyebrow in curiosity. "This fresco," Loena gestured upwards, and both gazed to the roof. "What does it depict?"

Arwen smiled, a sort of sad smile, and met Loena's eyes. "Ah! Yes, I painted this many years ago. Soon after I returned from Lothlórien."

"I could not uncover its meaning from any of the texts in the library," Loena continued, gesturing to the mother. "Of course there are many mothers, and many children, in a history as long as Middle Earth's—"

"It is the Lord Aragorn, with his Lady mother," Arwen interrupted her spiel. She kept her gaze up, watching the painting as though seeing it anew. "I remember well when I had painted this. The story of Estel had not yet been told in many corners of the land. I wanted to remember this part of his tale, when his mother fled to Rivendell for his safety, and died for the sake of her son."

"Died?" Loena choked.

"Gilraen," Arwen said. "That was the name of his Lady Mother. She had lost her husband, but she found the will to continue on. I was inspired by her strength, and was endlessly thankful for her devotion to the one I love. If it had not been for her, we would have never met."

It was a strange thought, Loena mused, but a nice one.

"Well!" She said, her brightness starkly different to the rest of the tone of the room. "Your part of the deal has been delivered. I shall come with you, Lady Arwen, and make merry with the others I am to be travelling with."

Aragorn, Elladan and Elrohir arrived back from their scouting missions only a week after Gandalf and Glorfindel. Gandalf expressed to Loena, with far higher spirits than she had seen him in a while, that from their information, they could be sure that the Nazgúl had fled back to their master without form and without horses. With them disappeared, it was time finally for the Fellowship to set out.

They were each given a week to prepare.

Loena used hers as well as she could. Despite her begging, Elrond and Gandalf had refused them all horses.

"In a mission of secrecy and stealth, horses would hinder us, however fast they would carry us," Gandalf had said, and ended the conversation there.

Without a horse to ride, she'd been spending her time preparing her weapons. _Gi__éd_, her faithful sword, had been polished to finery by the Elves. The Elves, also, had given her leave to take arrows from their stores, and they had given her oil for her bow, and a new, Elvish string that would never break. Not from years, nor overuse.

She'd practiced her archery, but she'd eased off on swordplay, not wanting to overtire herself before she set out. She spoke often with the hobbits, and had gotten to know Gimli rather well. They'd both bonded over mistrusting the structural integrity of Elvish weapons.

"Nothing this light could cut through an orc," Loena had snorted, picking up one of the featherweight, elvish blades in the armoury. She swung it in her hand, and gripped it tightly. "If you haven't the strength for a sword, then do not wield one!"

"Well said, lassie," Gimli had agreed, nodding. "If we are to go through a realm of my kin, I'd show what a truly fearsome weapon looks like."

Legolas, on the other hand, had been too strange for her to have long conversations with. Like the rest of his kin, he had a certain air of eternity about him. To Loena, he had also a strange manner that made her instantly distrustful. Gimli had told her it was because he was from Mirkwood, which was an evil place, and that all the elves there were eerie and strange.

Loena had met other Mirkwood elves, though, over her time in Rivendell. They were as strange as Arwen and her kin, but no stranger. She thought perhaps the young, Elven princeling was simply a bit of a strange Elf by himself.

It was an unignorable truth, however that Legolas laughed easily, and Aragorn smiled oft whenever they were in conversation, so she was content that, eventually, they might become acquaintances.

All too soon, the final day drew near. Loena had woken early, and watched as the sun had risen, like so many mornings before, over the courtyard below her room. It was a good day, crisp on the air, with only a hint of breeze. It would have been a perfect day for riding.

She dressed slowly. She'd spent much of her time in Rivendell in the garb she'd brought from Rohan, but now she traded it for the sturdier cloth of the elves. Woollen stockings, looser leggings, brown boots. A soft button down white shirt. A thicker over-shirt of blue, with an image of a stallion embroidered in the middle. Against her shoulder she wore a cloak of deep grey, which clasped together under her chin with a silver broach. She saw herself in the mirror of her room.

Determinedly, she undid the braids that had held her hair back. Her curls unfurled around her head like a fan, dusting over the top of her shoulders, spilling out down her back like a waterfall. She had come to Rivendell as a lady of the Riddermark, proud and tall and free, and that would be how she'd leave.

She fastened _G__íed _to her side, and her quiver to her back. She loosened the string of her bow, and tied it around the shaft, and pushed it down inside the quiver with her arrows.

Her pack had been left in her room the night before. In it she found a bedroll (which depressed her, only reminding her that she'd be trading in soft silks for the hard floor of the hard ground of the wilds), a water sac (which she appreciated, though she worried at its small size), a flint, another button up shirt like the one she wore, another pair of stockings, another leggings, and a whetstone for her sword.

She made her way down to the gate from Rivendell slowly, and found that all looked at her, and nodded, as she went. Some of the party had already arrived when she got there, and it was not long after that Elrond requested they all line up, side by side, for Rivendell to properly farewell them. Loena stood aside Sam and Legolas, Boromir and Aragorn stood side-by-side, as similar as brothers. Gandalf stood by Frodo, and Merry and Pippin stood next to Gimli, who was resting as he stood on his battle axe. Elrond, and a grand party, stood to bid them farewell.

Elrond stood in front of the grouped host, with his kin, the old hobbit Bilbo, and the dwarves who'd come with Gimli, behind him. They watched them all with eyes of sorrow, and Loena felt uncomfortable at the intensity of their looks.

"This is my last word.

The Ring-bearer is setting out on a quest for Mount Doom. On him is any charge laid; neither to cast away the Ring, nor deliver it to any servant of the enemy nor indeed to let any handle it. The others that go with him as free companions, to help him on his way. You may tarry, or come back—"

Loena swallowed at that, thinking how dearly she'd miss her comfortable old room, with the soft sheets and comfortable mattress, after a few days of rough living. Minor discomfort was not what Elrond intended, of course.

"The further you go, the less easy will it be to withdraw; yet no oath is laid on you to go further than you will. For you do not yet know the strength of your hearts, and you cannot foresee what each may meet upon the road."

"Faithless is he who says farewell when the road darkens," Gimli muttered darkly, and Loena felt a small shiver run down her spine at his words.

"Do not judge too harshly those who do not know what walks in the night," Elrond said, with a hint of warning. He turned now to the full Fellowship, his smile wide. "Go now with good hearts! May the blessing of Elves and Men and all Free Folk go with you. May the stars shine on your faces!"

A chorus called out for good luck as each of them turned, following Frodo from Rivendell, and towards the fires of Mordor.


	8. EXTENDED SCENE 2: Tale of Loena of Rohan

**Thank you to everyone who has been reading this so far! These extended chapters aren't essential to the general story line, though they do add a little something to the world building. If you're a bit pressed for time, these are the chapters to skip.**

**If anyone has any questions, qualms or concerns, please don't hesitate to ask!**

**\- Dirv**

* * *

After three days of walking, Loena was as gratified as the rest when Gandalf finally called for a rest. They'd been walking from sunup to sundown, each of them staggering along. With each step Loena rued that she had not pressed harder for a horse to ride. Legolas, Aragorn and Boromir were the least affected, and the hobbits were the worst. Boromir was often the one who volunteered to carry them, not wanted to over-exert the pony they'd brought to hold their things.

Loena had once carried Pippin for a while, and had felt rather like a horse herself. The feeling had been disconcerting, and she'd only lasted a few miles.

"Legolas, Loena," Gandalf said, before either could sit down. "Would you go and scout the area – make sure we aren't to be disturbed by any unwanted visitors."

Loena swallowed a retort and nodded, setting her pack down, and stringing her bow. She felt Gandalf's gaze on her linger for a moment, as if he had some understanding of what she was wanting to say. She wiped a dusty hand on her shirt, leaving another dirt stain amongst the many hundreds she'd picked up since leaving Rivendell.

"Of course," Legolas said, as untouched and picture perfect as he had been since the day all of them had left from Rivendell. Loena had found that increasingly frustrating, as her own hair became mattered and oily, and every time she scrubbed her face, increasing amounts of dirt were showing up in her palm.

Pippin had told her that her hair was looking quite brown. The thought made her feel quite ill. It had come to the point where she knew that if she didn't find a creek to bathe in soon, she'd make do standing out nude in a rainstorm.

Once she finished, she waited impatiently while Legolas spoke with Aragorn in elvish. Aragorn laughed, and Loena felt her temper flare. Could he not hurry? Did he not want to be done, and back at camp, as well as she did?

Probably not. Loena stared at Legolas's back as he reached for his own quiver, and his own bow, which he still had to string. It would take him barely a minute to do, which was a fraction of the time it took Loena, but the waiting made every second feel like an eternity.

By the time he was finally finished, Loena nodded for him to come to her. "Shall we go North, then circle back down the west way, and then up east?" Loena suggested. "The forest seems denser to the west, and it would be better to go through it while it is light."

Legolas nodded, but he seemed unconcerned. "Either works for me," he said. "Elves can see well in both the dark and the light."

Loena blinked at him. "Of course you can," she muttered. She gripped her bow in her hand a little tighter, and swallowed as much of her frustration away as she could. "Come now."

"As you wish," Legolas said lightly, and in such a way that Loena suspected he were mocking her.

The pair made their way south quickly, and quietly. Despite her tiredness, Loena refused to ease up on her leg muscles, forcing herself to walk lightly across the leaves lost from the leaves around them from the frost of the early winter.

Suddenly Legolas paused, frowning.

Loena watched him warily, hand tightening around _G__íed_'s leather grip. "Legolas?" She asked, her voice a gasp of a whisper.

He had no trouble hearing her, and his strange, blue eyes found hers. "Orc," he mouthed back.

Loena swallowed again, and followed him forward. Loena had never been one for sneaking through the underbrush – both for the fact that she had little interest in the element of surprise, and because there was very little underbrush in Rohan to sneak through. Nevertheless, she paid special attention to where she placed her feet, and tiptoed along behind Legolas, copying his steps as well as she could.

She paused, noting a strange indent in the ground. She squatted next to it, pushing her cloak back from her knees so she could study it better. The curve of the front was achingly similar to the boots of the orcs at home. But the print had been covered with dirt, and dead blades of grass had been caught on the side. It was not a new print.

She looked up to see Legolas had paused to watch her.

He gestured to it and cocked his head to the side, as if to ask what she knew.

Loena wasn't sure how to respond in body-language alone, so she spoke in a low whisper. "Orc. Old. Three days, two?"

Legolas nodded, and both moved on, scanning the forest for any movement, and any more footprints. Loena spied several more in the soft, fertile dirt beneath the trees. Each were the same story. She was beginning to lose some of the fear that had arisen before.

Legolas paused just before a clearing, standing up on the top of a root. He was facing forward, and she stood beside him. In front of them, through the branches and trees, a clearing lay littered with the offcuts of a camp. There was a charcoal firepit, remains of animals, churned up dirt and flattened grass.

"They're gone," Legolas said, no longer whispering.

Loena moved in beside him, and went to press at the old coals. They were dead cold, and already a film of dust had settled on them. She even saw a fresh leaf caught at the top of the pile. "They've been gone a while."

"Three days?" Legolas asked, walking around.

Loena straightened and wiped her blackened fingers on the front of her shirt. The once-white fabric was dirty enough that she had no misgivings. "If that. Sometimes in Rohan, when there is no wind or rain, tracks can seem fresh after an age."

"The forest is rarely so kind," Legolas said. She saw he was feeling at a small cut in one of the trees. He murmured something to himself in Elvish, and turned back to look at her expectantly.

"No," she said, feeling rather stupid, and realising she was far out of her depth. Legolas was a Wood Elf, it was more likely than anything that he knew how to read the age of an orc print. She looked around, and then, narrowing her eyes, moved to another section of the glade. It was flatter than most.

She knelt beside it. The grass had been cloven in two at some points, and there were hard indents in the ground. A horse had stood here, she realised suddenly.

Fear gripped her, and she stood. Images of the Nazgúl on their black steeds swarmed her mind, and she backed away fearfully.

Legolas sensed her anxiety and called out to her. "Loena?" He came beside her, and placed a hand on her shoulder, in a nearly human gesture. "Are you alright?"

Loena swallowed the shake on her voice and pointed to the area she'd bent next to. "There, in the ground. A horse stood there."

Legolas took her meaning immediately. "Orc's don't ride horses."

"Another traveller could have settled in the same clearing," Loena said, turning to look around them. Though there was only proof of one fire pit, and no markings that would indicate a man had stood there.

Legolas shook his head grimly. "None come here. This land is deserted." He looked about, still worried, though now wistful. "The trees were crying out that they had seen an orc. I felt that it must have been a recent spotting."

"Trees change slowly," Loena said. The earth around them was still, but there was still birdsong, and the faint rustling in the underbrush of tiny animals. She was beginning to realise that whatever had camped here was long gone. She knew in Rohan that the coming of orcs could be predicted by the way the earth itself seemed to flee, hidden up in itself. "With the earth. And the seasons."

Legolas blinked at her in surprise. "Yes. Precisely." He looked around, and seemed to feel the same way as she. "I think the evil has passed this place."

Loena hadn't known properly where she'd dredged the thought from, but she was glad she had, because Legolas seemed to look at her with less of his open eyed, barely benevolent, curiosity, and now more with kinship.

"The Elves can speak with trees, so I have heard?" Loena asked, looking about them, at the evergreens that hung over the little glade like curtains.

Legolas seemed to hesitate, and Loena realised that she'd probably massively oversimplified that tradition, but he was the forgiving type, and nodded. "Yes, and Elves lived here once. They call to me as if I am one they once knew."

"What else do they say?" Loena asked.

"They ask for rain, and sunshine, and for birds to fill their branches," Legolas shrugged. "They want for little."

"I suppose that makes sense," Loena said. She couldn't imagine what else a tree could want for.

"Now, come," Legolas said, sparing one last glance into the old campsite. "The evil may have passed, but it could come back. Gandalf will want to know of this."

Loena didn't like his impetuous tone, but she followed him without squawking her indignation. Half for the true urgency of their mission, and half because she was distracted by the trees. She wondered if they would remember her, and tell of her to any other travellers who passed through.

_A thing with golden hair_, she mused to herself. _Who wasn't a bird, or a fox. With the garb of the Elves, and a sword on her hip_.

As predicted, Gandalf was disturbed by the news. He, too, agreed that orcs rarely brought horses with them, especially when they were travelling. When they fought they did it on Wargs.

"So be it!" he announced, and the fellowship had turned to him to hear his decision. "We will have no more fires."

"No more fires!" Pippin cried, and Merry beside him looked equally aghast.

"It'll do us no good to freeze to death," Gimli said, grumbling beside Loena. "We started our journey on the throes of winter. We should have left later, or earlier, if we had wanted to travel without a fire."

"And yet, that was not the path that had been chosen for us," Gandalf admonished him quickly. He turned to the hobbits. "During the day, when the weather is clear, and if you can find wood that won't smoke, I may permit it."

That seemed to cheer them up a little, though Pippin still looked distraught. Loena had been lectured on the hobbit eating schedule by Sam a few days after they'd left Rivendell. Her stomach gurgled in sympathy.

"Loena, Legolas, well done," Gandalf turned to them. "For the next few days, I would ask that you scout the path ahead to ensure we do not unwittingly catch up to those who would bring about our doom."

Loena despaired a little at the thought of being with Legolas, and only Legolas, for an indeterminate amount of time. Of all the people she had spoken to, she had the least in common with him. Still, she didn't want to disappoint Gandalf, and nor did she have any special desire to embarrass the Elf. Only Gimli looked at her with any sort of sympathy – Boromir was talking with Aragorn, and both were smiling, and neither were paying attention to Gandalf's decree. Frodo was sitting and resting on the root of a tree, while Sam held out a water pouch, seemingly trying to get Frodo to drink. Pippin and Merry were muttering to each other, probably lamenting the last of their bacon.

Legolas looked the same as he ever did – unfazed, ethereal, slightly bored and faintly happy.

They made camp that night with the quickness of an experienced group. Loena found a soft piece of ground and a root to support her head, found a dark piece of the woods to relieve herself, and ground some of the Witch Hazel she'd taken from Rivendell for the hot blisters on her feet. Normally on nights like these she or Aragorn would cook the food, and then Aragorn or Gandalf would tell a story.

Tonight Boromir had taken his hand to cooking, grimly setting out their first cold dinner. The hobbits seemed to have gotten over their initial grumpiness and were bright and cheerful. It raised the spirits of the camp, and even Gandalf, who'd been moved to stony silence by the news of the orc camp, boomed his belly laugh.

After the food was eaten, and the crockery scrubbed. When no one moved to tell a story, the camp fell into a companionable silence.

Until Frodo spoke out.

He was a quiet one, but not unnervingly so. Loena had spoken with him, walked with him, and even carried him along their journey. He was kind, and knowledgeable. Sometimes he'd join in singing the songs Gandalf or Aragorn sung. Sometimes he'd sing a song of his own, which were either lilting tunes about the Shire, or deep baritone renditions of dwarven song that Gimli seemed to often recognise. She knew now, after living with Bilbo for several months, that Frodo's uncle had been one of those in Thorin Oakenshield's company. He must've sung those songs to his ward all through his ageing years. The thought made her smile.

"Lady Loena, tell us of your life in Rohan?" Frodo blinked at her from across the clearing.

She blinked at him in surprise. "My life?"

She looked to Gandalf and saw him puffing on his pipe, watching the scene with a strange, curious exuberance. Across from her, Aragorn was barely hiding a smile. Boromir had paused with his whetstone over his sword.

"I feel as though we know a lot about everyone," Frodo said. He had a high, clear voice, and he seemed confident. "But we don't know much of you."

"Oh, well," Loena shuffled uncomfortably. "What would you like to know?"

"Where do you live?" Pippin piped up.

"Who do you live _with_?" Merry added.

"Who taught you how to fight?"

"Do _all _maiden's fight in your land?" it was Sam this time, with a hesitance Loena found instantly endearing.

Loena looked around the circle and saw all looking at her. "Oh, well, I…" she looked around, and saw Aragorn watching her, face morphed as if trying to hide a smile. "I suppose Strider could answer some of those questions."

"Indeed, I could answer questions of Rohan," Aragorn said. "But I know little of you as these hobbits."

"I tell you _some _things—" Loena started.

"Not really," Boromir said, thoughtfully, putting his whetstone down completely now. "Even when we spent all our time together teaching the hobbits, we spoke mostly of swordplay, and when we weren't, we divided our time between complaining about Elvish food and my life in Gondor."

Loena had the gall to feel faintly embarrassed for complaining about Elrond's hospitality, but none paid too much heed to it.

"Same with me, lassie," Gimli added. "Even these past three days."

"Oh, well…" Loena ran a hand through her hair. "What were those first questions again?"

Once they'd been repeated, Loena answered them as swiftly as she could. She lived in Edoras, with her mother. She'd been taught swordplay by a string of masters until she'd gotten older and the king had pitied them enough to move them to Edoras. There she'd learnt alongside Éowyn, a few years her junior.

"So it _is _commonplace for maidens to wield a sword," Sam deduced.

Loena fidgeted. "Well, no. No…" She saw Sam's confusion. "It is common in my family. My line had an unusually high number of female births. The lineage is traced through women with few exceptions." She allowed herself a brief smile. "My ancestor, Beornia, was a great Shield-Maiden. There are few in Rohan who have not heard the songs sung of her."

"What lineage is that?" Pippin asked expectantly.

Loena widened her eyes a little. She really _had _told her companions very little about herself. She spared a glance to Legolas, who was watching her with the same curiosity as the others gathered around her. She wondered if his strangeness to her had anything to do with this. She was suddenly very determined to be forthcoming.

"The line of kings was broken after the second king of Rohan," Loena explained, as quickly as she dared. "The elder son, Baldor, disappeared into the Path of the Dead to never return. He was the true heir, and his children would have inherited the kingdom, but after his death, the kingship passed to—"

"His brother," Merry guessed.

Loena nodded. "Yes, but Baldor had an heir. A daughter, Beornia"

"The—" Frodo started.

Loena nodded to him. "Shield Maiden, yes. She was not in line for the throne for matters of her sex, but she married, and had daughters, and they married, and had daughters. The line was distinguished at this time, and it was dangerous period. The tradition of our family teaching women to fight as well as men started then."

"What about in times of peace?" Sam asked suddenly.

"Those have been few and far between in my land," Loena said, feeling the bitterness of her inherited history weigh down her words. She swallowed and forced herself to pick up the pace. "There was a brief age, after the death of Baldor, that the Dunlendings were driven back, and peace reigned freely. They call this the Golden Age." Loena ignored the rising nostalgia for a splendour lost, and accomplishments come to nothing. She spurred herself on. "Nevertheless, after generations and generations, the estate fell into disrepair, almost all the wealth was lost, and the name of Baldor became worthless."

"Until recently," Frodo guessed. "For you said that you and your family were invited to Edoras by the king."

Loena blinked, slightly surprised that he'd remembered. "Yes, that's right. My mother was the true successor of that moment of rebuilding, though. She was the one who appealed the king. She was the one who presented me there and made our connections known. It is through her that my blood of Baldor flows."

"What of your father?" Gimli now, watching her with interest.

"A kind man, with a small amount of land and a few tenants," Loena said. "He died before we moved to Edoras."

Loena suffered an unexpected pang at the loss of a father she had barely remembered. She had been so young when he'd died, barely 8 summers old. She could remember his face, sometimes, just before sleeping. Other than that, though, he was a faceless smile, a bodyless sensation of warmth and love.

Legolas shuffled uncomfortably, before blurting; "you read."

Loena raised an eyebrow. "I do."

Legolas looked a little strained. "That is…unusual. For a woman of Rohan."

"Not so unusual for those with my standing," Loena shrugged. "Especially for these past few generations. But I see your point. Before we moved, the king was petitioned by my mother for some simple kindnesses. One was money, one was some more land, and the third was to fund my education. He granted none but the third, suspicious that she was not of Baldor's line as she claimed, and also, he did not want to create a precedent where all who could claim royal blood could simply write to him and be lauded as his family."

Loena spared herself a small smile. "My mother was clever, though, for she didn't specify the cost of my education, nor the tutor, nor the place that it would occur. She wanted me to have a better chance than she did. She wanted the best. She sent me and a small entourage – my nurse and a porter – to Gondor. For 10 years I went each summer."

"Did you meet Boromir there?" Pippin asked, looking to where the lord of Gondor was resting.

Loena twitched her lips in a small smile, and Boromir looked slightly abashed. "I did, but I fear I didn't make quite the impression I'd hoped for."

"I wouldn't worry," Pippin said, saving Boromir from an answer. "Boromir forgets where he puts his shield every time we leave in the morning."

Loena laughed, and the others did too, and even Boromir chuckled.

"Well, anyway," Loena said, pushing her hair over her ear. "I learnt much in Gondor. I learnt to read, I learnt history, I learnt arithmancy and warfare and a little Sindarin, though—" she said, before Legolas could interrupt in wonder. "I was quite terrible at it. I would run away from my tutor and back to my lodgings more often than I'd stay for the class."

Legolas smiled. "_Im heni_." Loena was mystified, but Aragorn snorted, and Frodo smiled, so she just flashed a grin at the elf and continued on.

"When my mother and I moved to Meduseld, and become closer companions with the king and his family, he started to worry, after a few years, that I'd become too Gondorian."

"A compliment, I'm sure," Boromir joked.

"Hardly," Loena said. "Rohan had suffered one king who'd come from Gondor and tried to make Rohan more like Gondor – changed the language the customs…it is an uncomfortable history. Théoden King sustained his disagreement for as long as he could, but in the end he decided that he would never have overlooked any other of the noble family's sending their children to Gondor, and despite the fact that we were far, far from his innermost circle, he felt the same philosophy had to be applied.

"I was inconsolable at first, of course. I'd miss my tutors, and visiting the great libraries and crypts. My mother appealed to the king when she saw my state, but it was to no avail. I would not return to Gondor for education. I would remain in Rohan." Loena had wanted to say that her true reason for her despair was the loss of her friend in Gandalf. She'd become accustomed to him, as she'd grown, and the last year before she'd been prohibited from going had in them only a few short days where she and Gandalf had met and talked.

She had not known where to send a letter to tell him that she would not be returning. The ones she sent to Gondor were never returned. She had feared that he'd think she'd died, or that she abandoned him.

She looked at him now, and he was watching her with a hint of that old fondness she'd remembered from her youth.

"What did the king do?" Frodo asked now. "After your mother's petitioning?"

"This was when he allowed me to learn how to fight with a sword alongside his niece," Loena said. "The Lady Éowyn. It worked well as a distraction twofold. Firstly, I was skilled with a sword, but was in dire need of proper direction." She saw Boromir smirk a little. She thought back to their lessons and grimaced a little. "Second," she ploughed on. "Éowyn and I were well suited to be friends, and sparring partners. We got on well, and through this, my mother's plan for our family's rebirth was established strongest. Never before had I so much time with the king. And never before had he been so fond of me." Loena swallowed, knowing what was next. "Then our instructor was killed in skirmish with the mountain men, and we were without a tutor. We were both at the natural point in our swordplay to evolve to something else. Most men in the eored would never have had the time and attention that we were given. They'd be sent off to fight on the back of their father's horse, holding a sword for the very first time."

She looked around suddenly, aware that she'd been speaking for a much longer time than she normally would. She wondered if she'd ever strung so many words together in a row before.

_Probably not_, she thought, looking around the circle at all the eyes fixed on her. _And certainly never in front of these people. _She nearly chuckled. _And certainly not about my own, personal history._

"Does Éowyn fight too, then?" Sam asked. He scratched his head, confused. "I thought you said she was Théoden's niece…and _not _of your line?"

"Yes…shieldmaiden's do exist outside of my family, they're just not such a sure thing," Loena explained, struggling to hold all the threads of her story together. "But besides that, Éowyn didn't go on to become a proper shieldmaiden. Her uncle forbid it. And as he aged, she didn't ask him again, for he needed someone to take care of him." At that Loena felt slightly guilty. After all of it, she _had _left Éowyn to her fate, to watch after a dying man, and care for him during the golden hours of her youth. "The king, however, was not so attached to me. He instated me in his nephew, Éomer's—" she wondered if they noticed her pause at the word, whether they heard the familiarity in her tone, or saw the glean in her eye. "Eored as the Ensign. It was mostly a token role. I held the standard when we rode from village to village, but I was left behind when there was fighting to be done. All those years learning seemed like a waste."

"Were you given a sword?" Gimli asked, a little gruff. "They should have at _least _given you a sword."

Loena was touched that he were so concerned on her behalf. She nodded. "They did. And it was lucky that they did, for it saved me when we were surprised by a small pack of orcs a few years back. Éomer and all other senior soldiers were so distracted that none could give me order to flee. So I stayed, and I fought, and I fought _well_." The memory, despite the horror of the bloodshed, brought a proud smile to Loena's lips. "Éomer is not a miserly Marshal. He was resistant to the idea of a woman becoming properly integrated into the eored, but after more skirmishes, I proved myself again and again. He didn't know me well, and had no special love for me; he wouldn't prevent me from fighting to save me, and nor would he grant me special favour."

"What happened, thereafter?" Aragorn looked curious now.

Loena shrugged. "Théoden fell more ill, Éomer became relatively unencumbered over his lordship over the eored, and my transition from standard bearer to a proper Ensign of Rohan was an easy evolution."

"Does Théoden King know of your appointment, then?" Aragorn asked, though it seemed as though he were asking something else.

Loena frowned at his tone, but answered his question faithfully. "I have presented myself to him in that capacity many times, though I do doubt it very much. He knows little of what happens in his own halls, let alone the happenings of the eored." She sighed. "And the things he does know, he forgets."

"But neither you, nor Éomer, have impressed it deeply upon him?" Aragorn pressed. "He must recall _some _things?"

Loena wanted to demand him to tell her what he meant, but she swallowed it. All had sat so patiently and listened to her speak, none now needed the unpleasantness of a verbal spat. "No, I doubt it. Éomer rarely consults his uncle anymore when it comes to his duties as Marshal. His ears are too far gone to catch gossip, and the only advisor he listens to has not enough love for me to bring me up in this flattering light."

"And so your house was restored!" Pippin said jubilantly, breaking through the strange tension Aragorn's questioning had brought about. "You ride with the knights of your country, the sun shines on you forever, so on, so forth."

Loena tightened her lips into more of a grimace than smile. "Not yet." She looked now at Gandalf, who met her eyes in solemnity. "The name has a long way to go, before it can be restored."

Loena pulled her cloak a little tighter around her, and a silence descended as each fell into their own thoughts.

"Now," Gandalf said, rising. "We shall sleep. And I shall keep the first watch. We continue on this route for another 37 days before coming to the South Passage. And then to Mordor. Sleep, well, all. May your dreams be blessed."

Loena had been right, in the end; Legolas had deliberately disliked her because he didn't _trust_ her. After she had told them all the tale of her life, their times scouting ahead was far more enjoyable. He'd tell her, quite animatedly, how old the trees were that they passed. Once he tried to teach her a long Elvish ballad, but her tongue had tripped over the unfamiliar words, and he'd given up, laughing.

Now that he wasn't so deliberately haughty, she was beginning to appreciate the skills she'd found deeply annoying before. He was unparalleled with a bow, and he was a patient teacher whenever they'd found themselves too far ahead, and needed something to occupy their time with while they waited.

Sometimes they'd find a strangeness in the air – or Legolas would hear a strangeness in the voices of the trees – and they'd go quiet, and begin searching. Apart from that first campsite, neither had found any more proof of an orc party, or, thankfully, any more proof of a Nazgúl and his steed. After three days of their scouting, Gandalf allowed them to come back into the group.

Now, though, the dynamic had shifted slightly. Loena no longer stood at the back, talking with just the hobbits, or moodily staring off into the endless woods. Now she spoke amicably with all of them, walking amongst them easily.

She felt a strong kindship blossom now, in her chest, like a warm heat, whenever she looked over them at the end of a day. After two weeks of travelling, she felt as attached to them as she felt she could bear.

She'd felt detached, overwhelmed. The strange scion of a strange line, thrust into the world of kings, Lords and Princes, of wizards and Evil Magic. Now, at least, she knew she was not alone. Now she could see their value in her, and not resent them because she had not been able to see it in herself.


	9. Whispers from the Dark

On the top of the crags, nearer to her homeland than she'd been in months, Loena looked across the open earth around her. She breathed deeply, grinning as she did, fists clenched at her side for the joy bundled in her stomach. Above them the sky was an unending cerulean blue, and the sun shone white through her golden hair.

The gap of Rohan beckoned, and with it, a semi-homecoming. She knew that after two months of travel, her companions would be easily swayed to taking refuge for a few days in her city. There she could see her mother, each could tend to their wounds. The last meeting between Théoden and Gandalf weighed on her mind, but she dismissed it easily. They were each stately men, they would come to a lordly agreement, in the end.

"Loena! Come down here!"

Loena turned to where Boromir had called her. From her vantage point, she could see he had the Hobbits clustered around him, each of them clutching their own sword.

Loena grinned widely. "Back to our old tricks, then, Boromir?"

The travel until now had been hard-going, but far from exhausting. Loena slept well each night, and along the way there had been rivers and ponds enough for them to keep bathed, clean, and in high spirits. Each had spoken to the others in their group often, and deeply. Loena remembered a day when she spoke to Aragorn almost exclusively. He had taught her snares and traps to lay in the forest, and how to age a footprint by the amount of debris lain over it. It was often difficult for Loena to comprehend the ranger before her as the heir to Isildur. She remembered the tales that had been told of him, and the clever poem Bilbo had been singing about him in the weeks before they left.

_The crownless again shall be king_¸ she thought to herself, watching Aragorn mend a whole in one of his shirts, thread hanging from between his teeth. _Crownless indeed_.

She sometimes would wonder how he'd fare in the washed, white city of Minas Tirith, with no trees to camp in, and no deer to hunt.

He would not be a king who would desire other men to act for him, she'd finally decided. He would act for himself.

Boromir's laugh boomed up to her as she scampered down to meet them. "Our students require a new lesson, it would seem."

Loena alighted beside them, and worked to unsheathe her sword from her belt. "We'd better get started."

In the end, Loena took one hobbit for parrying, and Boromir took the other for blocking. They changed around quickly, as if it were a real fight. Loena focused tightly as Merry swapped to Pippin, who swapped to Sam and then Frodo.

"Good work," Loena congratulated Frodo, who'd always been the most determinedly good at sneaking through defences with his sword.

The weakest arm was Pippin's, who seemed at a loss with what to do with the pointy end of his stick. Second to him was Merry, who stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth when he concentrated, and was always too focused on what Loena was doing to pay heed to what he needed to do.

Soon enough Sam and Frodo had had their fill and wandered off. Gandalf must have lifted the no-fire rule for just a moment, for soon the smell of cooking fat and meat wafted over, as well as the cracking of burning wood. The smell of it made Loena's stomach turn in hunger.

Aragorn came to watch them after a time. Loena knew he and Gandalf had been discussing which route to take across the mountains. Loena was confident that the Gap of Rohan remained the most likely outcome, but she was worried that they'd seen something she had not.

She stood back while Boromir entertained Merry and Pippin.

"Two, one, five," Boromir instructed, and the steel clang out across through the empty space. "Good, very good."

"Move your feet," Aragorn called out to the hobbits, whose swords sounded out in the valley against Boromir's.

"And keep your feet light," Loena added, feeling slightly useless now that Aragorn had stepped in as sword-master. Not to be outdone, she added, "try to stay on the balls of your feet."

"Now I'm just-" Merry ducked a swipe from Boromir and fell back. He looked at Loena accusingly. "I was just thinking about your feet."

"Better than not thinking about them at all," Loena countered.

Merry pushed himself up and watched his friend, who seemed to be matching up well against Boromir's softer sparring approach. "You look good, Pippin."

"Balls of my feet and—" Pippin pushed back against Boromir's sword and side-stepped a swipe. "Everything!"

"There you go, Merry," Loena said drily. "It can be done!"

"Faster!" Boromir called, and Merry leapt into the fray. Both pushed as hard as they could, but they were no match for the blade Boromir held. Loena laughed as she watched them, as the furious fight of the hobbits levelled to the relatively standard intensity Boromir was applying.

"…_long _way around," Gimli growled loudly behind her. Loena turned to look, and saw the dwarf was sitting next to Gandalf. "We could pass through the Mines of Moria! My cousin Balin would give us a royal welcome."

"No Gimli," Gandalf said gravely.

Loena felt sufficiently satisfied that they'd maintain the road to Rohan, and left their conversation be.

Boromir nicked Pippin's hand, and the two hobbits stare at him, mouths wide open.

Boromir widened his eyes. "Sorry!"

Pippin let out a war cry and leapt upon Boromir, kicking him in the legs. Merry, not one to miss out, carolled into the fray, knocking into Boromir. With their combined weight they send him sprawling.

"For the Shire!" Pippin called.

Loena burst out laughing, holding her middle as she bent over. "_Boromir_!" she managed between bursts of laughter. She had no real thing to say to him, but he looked rueful as he made eye contact with her.

"Hold him!" Pippin called, like a Marshal mustering his knights. "Hold him Merry!" They bowed down on Boromir once more, their determination written in hard lines over their faces.

Aragorn strode in behind her, and clasped her on the shoulder as she wiped tears of mirth from her eyes. He crossed to where they were tangled in each other.

Aragorn pulled up Merry and Pippin by the scruffs of their neck, like a mother with her pups. "Gentlemen, that's enough."

Not so easily dissuaded, Pippin and Merry charged again, throwing Aragorn back and keeping Boromir down.

Loena burst out laughing again, clutching her sore stomach.

"Suppose you were to have a go?" Aragorn called to her.

"I know better than to challenge halflings of the Shire!" Loena called back, chortling still. "Nice work Merry, Pip!" Boromir met her with an exasperated look, and Aragorn picked himself up, dusting off the dirt Merry had kicked over his jacket.

From beside his fire, Sam, facing south, called out. "What is that?"

Loena turned to look with him. There was a strange dark curling of cloud far in the east. It moved quickly against the sky.

"Nothing, it's just a wisp of cloud," Gimli dismissed quickly.

Loena moved to agree, but she was cut off by Boromir, who'd heaved himself to his feet. "It's moving fast…and against the wind."

Legolas, who'd been standing watching the South as they'd fought, called back now in fear, "It's Crebain! From Dunland!"

Loena felt the blood and humour melt from her face. The Crebain had been a terror on the fields of Rohan, ever they spoilt harvest and starved the peasants who relied on them for food and money. They would pick at the dead carcasses of the Rohirrim before they could be buried, and had no fear of striking the flanks of horses with their cruelly sharpened talons.

"_No_—" she said, watching the small wisp with fear, mounting as it seemed to grow closer and closer. Sevants of Saruman, coming from the direction of her home. She could only imagine the evil that they had done there, and all the evil they would do next.

"Hide!" Aragorn snapped her from her reverie, and she move quickly.

She pulled her sword from where she'd left it and sheathes it quickly, and skipped the stones to their campsite, bundling as much as she could in her arms.

"Hurry!" Boromir called, for even now Loena could hear the stark, deep, wrench of their calls. She wanted to claw at her ears and press herself against the earth. She gritted her teeth, leaping over the now extinguished fire towards the bushes and rocks they could find shelter beneath.

"Take cover!" Aragorn yelled, and Loena obliged him quickly, pushing herself underneath the same rock Legolas had taken cover in. They pulled each other in against the wall of the rock, the bushes hiding their faces from the outside world.

There was a moment of silence, and then the flock descended. Twice it circled the camp, the Crebain's caws echoed like gravel in Loena's head. She closed her eyes to it, and pressed back as far as she could into the cave.

Then, as quickly as they'd come, they flew off, shrill shrieks carried off on the wind.

Slowly the fellowship pulled themselves up and out of their hiding places. She saw an old, oft-remembered fear on Gandalf's face as he turned to watch where the birds had flown to. "Spies of Saruman!" Loena cast her gaze amongst the fellowship, and saw the fear there. "The passage South is being watched! We must take the pass of Caradhras."

Loena processed what he said, and felt exhaustion and tears press heavily on the back of her eyes. "No!"

Her outburst was unwarranted, and all the fellowship turned to look at her with confusion.

It was Aragorn who spoke. "Why not, my lady?"

"We must hide from the eyes of Saruman!" Gandalf reminded her, and he seemed angry at her insolence. "There is no other way!"

"What of Moria!" Gimli demanded, but Gandalf silenced him with a frustrated glance.

"The Gap of Rohan is _protected _by _my People_!" Leona yelled. Suddenly she understood she would not see Rohan before the end of the quest, and the realisation hit her with more force than she cared for. "They will grant us safe passage!"

"The muster of the Riddermark is no protection against foul wizardry," Gandalf chastised her.

"We have defended our lands against the orc attacks of Saruman for years!" Loena countered, loud, and hot, and determined.

"You have survived Saruman because he dared not show his full hand," Gandalf said, hand tight on his staff. "You knew not of his treachery before I arrived in your lands!"

Loena, embarrassed, felt her eyes filling with tears. "We fought him nonetheless! And we fight him still! Let me call the muster! Let me gather the eored! Not even Saurman could defeat our collected forces."

"He would not need to," Gandalf said, his words slow, and Loena realised, deepening in sadness. "They would not come."

Loena felt her rage burn. "How _dare_—"

"They would not, Loena!" Gandalf cried, and she saw, through her grief and anger, him catch Aragorn's eye.

_They knew something_, Loena realised. And they'd kept it from her on purpose.

Frustrated, she turned to Aragorn now as well. "And what _proof _have you of this criminal claim! The king may be old, but he would not leave—"

"We fear Saruman's influence in Rohan has grown more than any had foreseen," Aragorn said, calmly, and with an air of finality. They would tell her no more than this. "In fact, we are sure of it."

"How so!" Loena refused to let up. She could see that their minds were set. "There are _good _men in Rohan still—"

"And there are evil men who control those good men's deeds!" Gandalf met her.

"_Who _is being _controlled_?" Loena demanded. "I would have _seen _it—"

"You were all blind to it, like frogs in hot water," Gandalf said, sounding rather sad, shaking his head and looking at her with a nauseating pity. He looked to Aragorn, and was affirmed, and looked to her again. "I did not want to burden you with this."

"_Who_?" Loena demanded, voice cold.

"Your _King_, Loena," Gandalf said gravely. "He has been taken, mind and bitter soul, by Saruman's forces."

Loena stared at him, her throat tightening. She felt her fingernails dig into her palms. Her head felt cold, and light. She looked around, and saw them all staring at her. She saw the wide eyes of the hobbits, and the slow curiosity of Gimli and Legolas. She saw a sore pity in Boromir, and that same pity in Aragorn. Lastly she saw Gandalf, and saw that what he said was true.

"I _don't _believe it," she said in a low, hollow voice.

"You must," Gandalf replied, simply.

And suddenly Loena felt a great wave of hopelessness descend upon her. For it was true, it _must_ be true. The unnaturally aged and tired king, the way the orcs felt so free to wander across her lands. None had noticed the way the king had fallen, because it had happened so slowly, and so patiently, and so elegantly.

She felt suddenly very cold. She bowed her head, and a tear fell from her lashes and onto the ground below her.

"Come," Gandalf said finally, after a pregnant silence. "We cannot dally any longer."

Around her, the Fellowship fell in line behind him. Only Frodo waited behind. She watched them walk ahead of her, and found no strength to follow them.

Frodo came beside her, and reached up to hold her hand.

"I don't know how to bear it," Loena said, her voice almost silent.

"I do not know how to bear my burden, either," he admitted quietly.

Loena looked at him, momentarily shocked from her despair. He never spoke of the Ring, though sometimes he would look at it, with a strange focus on his face. Loena felt her desire for it even more, now. She imagined striding in to the Golden Halls of Edoras, presenting its power in front of the court, and banishing Saurman's influence from her home.

She remembered how it had felt seeing it for the first time, on the small stone table before the Council. It was _nothing _to the need she had now. The desire screamed inside her, and writhed, wicked.

The desire remained, even as she turned away from him and closed her eyes.

She ignored it as well as she could, and forced herself to look at Frodo and smile. "We shall bear it together, then."

They walked off together, a fair distance from the back of the Fellowship.

"I would have liked to have seen Rohan," Frodo said, a little wistfully. He looked vaguely south, towards the Gap that they had been making for.

Loena felt emotion clog the back of her throat. She cleared it roughly, and pushed her hair behind her ear. "I would have liked you to see it."

Loena woke the next morning, still emotionally exhausted, with a headache already at the front of her head. She roused herself drearily, and made the most of the small pond near their camp to wash herself before the snows of Caradhras. She found that the cool water did nothing for the pain in her head, and nor did it do anything to alleviate the heaviness on her heart.

She floated in the water, looking up at the pale blue early morning sky. Beneath her she felt something stir in the water. She paid it no mind. She stared unseeing, thinking about her walk with Frodo the day before. She thought of nothing in particular, but it absorbed much of her time. By the time she'd dried herself, dressed again and returned, the entire camp had come awake, and were eating through their breakfast.

Loena took hers from Sam wordlessly, sitting down at the end of her bedsheets, chewing on the old bread with an almost impressive disinterest.

When Gandalf announced that they were moving on, she picked herself up quickly, packed her bags with an unseeing familiarity, and stood.

They moved on, and Loena spoke to no one for the first half of the day. The headache did not cease, and it seemed as if with every step that it picked up in its intensity. By the time they'd sat down for lunch, it was nearly blinding.

"Would you like some lunch, Loena?" Pippin asked her.

She waved him off, closing her eyes and massaging her temple.

There was movement around her, but she was too disconnected to see it.

There was a mumbling.

She forced her thick tongue to speak. "What?"

"Are you well, Loena?"

She heard it now, Aragorn's soft voice pervading through the shadow.

She couldn't speak now, and the pain was stirring nausea in her stomach.

There was a sudden burst of clarity, and she burst her eyes open. She looked up into Aragorn's eyes, and saw that he was holding his hand on her forehead.

"Can you stand?" Aragorn asked her, and she nodded.

"It's a headache," she said, soft and without feeling. "I must have slept poorly."

Aragorn seemed unconvinced, but she turned away from him and eased her head back from his hand. The ache returned, but it was dulled.

After their rest, the exercise seemed to clear her head, rather than hurt it further. By the time she settled in for the night, she was almost back to her old self. She could ignore the pain at the back of her head, though it never really disappeared.

The air had begun to get colder as they climbed, and Loena huddled in her cloak whenever, during a rest, they sat around. It hadn't needed to be said – no one moved to light a fire.

The thought of Saruman, Rohan and his spies made Loena yearn for home more than ever. She wanted for her mother, for the hot fire in their hearth, for the strength of her mare Snowbourne beneath her. She fell into a silent, lonely sleep.

And woke with another headache.

The pattern copied itself over the next couple of days. Sometimes, in the grips of pain, she'd quietly ask Aragorn for some help. He'd hold the side of her head, and sometimes murmur something in Sindarin. The pain would alleviate, but it would never leave.

"I can give you something more," Aragorn had said. "Some herbs for the pain."

"It's fine," Loena would reply, somewhat sharply. It was, perhaps, unfair to be so dismissive of someone she relied on so much for her healing, but then, she had no desire to speak to him or Gandalf after their betrayal.

They should have told her. They should have never conspired to keep it secret. Of this, Loena was certain.

Their first day hiking up solid snow, Loena thought of Théoden often. She felt as though she were following the tradition of mourning, and even felt that same, great loss in her belly. She forced herself to watch her steps.

It snowed in Rohan, especially in the south, but never absolutely across the ground as it did on the mountain. If it weren't so cold, Loena could convince herself she were walking on a world of salt.

Loena was shocked from her reverie when, ahead of her, Frodo tripped and fell back, tipping down the mountain toward Aragorn, who walked before her.

"Frodo!" Aragorn called out, rushing forward. He caught Frodo, and pulled the hobbit to his feet.

Loena stopped up behind them, absently rubbing her head as she watched. The snow was slippery, and the hobbits still refused shoes, so she was relatively unsurprised. Even less so, it being Frodo. It seemed fitting, somehow. Loena watched him with something like contempt, pushing at her headache with tired fingers.

Loena noticed Frodo fidgeting. She gritted her teeth against it; it irritated her. Like aggravating itching all over her body. She had to look away, stare into the snow.

"Boromir," she heard Aragorn say.

She looked up and saw that Boromir had picked the Ring up on its chain from the snow. It must have slipped from around Frodo's neck as he'd fallen down.

Loena felt her frustration again. It was a necklace – _surely _even Frodo could keep it on over a rather minor spill.

"It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing," he was staring at the Ring. From where Loena stood, she could see how the sun glinted off the polished gold.

_In Rohan the Ring would glimmer like that every day_, Loena thought bitterly.

"Such a little thing."

Loena stared at the Ring, and by her sides, her fingers began to twitch. How dare _Boromir _cling to the Ring? Irritating, frustrating, _cruel _Boromir? What cause did he have? What claim? Minas Tirith was a fortified city, with as many ancient artefacts as people.

Their fight at the Council of Elrond was beginning to simmer at the back of Loena's mind, and it was everything she could do to prevent herself from lashing out at him again.

"Boromir!" Aragorn snapped, and both Loena and Boromir snapped up to look at him. She saw Aragorn watching Boromir carefully, Frodo still huddled in front of him.

Loena absently hoped Frodo was alright, and resolved to check him for bruises later that evening.

"Give the Ring to Frodo," Aragorn ordered, and Boromir snorted, dropping his gaze from the Ring. He stalked forward, and held it out for Frodo to grasp.

His arrogance astounded Leona. She wanted to scratch his face off.

"As you wish," Boromir said, as Frodo snatched the Ring back. "I care not."

Ahead of her, Aragorn loosened his hold on the hilt of his sword, and straightened, ushering Frodo ahead of him.

Loena stared with heat and fury at the back of Frodo's head for the rest of the day's walking. As they rested at the middle of the day, she spoke some with Boromir, who complained with her about the impossible chill of the air around them.

Loena did not remember her fury at him, but she did feel slightly strange when she looked at him, as though she owed him something like an apology.

That night they camped on the soggy outcrop of Caradhras. Night fell with the coming of an impossible cold, and Loena found herself contending with painfully cold extremities as well as the same headache that had plagued her for nearly a week. All had tried to create some fire on some dry firewood Pippin and Merry had shared between them from the forest, but none could get it going. It was only when Gandalf produced fire from the end of his staff, that they had proper warmth.

Loena patted Bill's nose as he stood there, miserable and cold. He responded to her happily, and felt lighter of spirit for it. Bill was a good, clever pony. A lesser horse would have bolted after so much misery.

Spirits were high enough after they had a tiny moment of warmth that Legolas regaled them all with one of his tales hunting down the giant Spiders that crawled through Mirkwood.

Frodo interrupted Legolas near the beginning; "Those were the spiders Bilbo saw, I presume!"

Loena had assumed Legolas would be as irritated as she by the inexplicable rudeness, but he merely laughed in excitement and nodded. "Yes! That must have been about the time we captured them and held the entire company hostage."

"I assume there are no more hard feelings?" Pippin asked smartly.

"I'd hasten to believe Bilbo probably thinks that the Capture-and-Escape rather enhances his story now," Frodo said, and all but Loena laughed. She was too busy resisting an urge to kick snow over the fire to spite Frodo, who had been holding his hands out over it for warmth.

The stories continued into the night, and all of them huddled together for warmth. Loena found herself set between Gimli and Boromir, and buried herself into them, as they buried into her.

She didn't know whether it was the human contact, or the small fire that continued to burn merrily as they drifted off to sleep, but she found herself more comfortable and anchored than she had been in days. It felt, though it could not have been, as if it were the best sleep she'd had since leaving Imladris.

Her mood was better that next morning than it had been in a while. She was even able to look upon Frodo without feeling a growing, growling anger. She made a merry conversation with Gimli as Boromir and Aragorn went on ahead, ploughing a path through the snow that lay ahead of them. Her head still ached, but it was becoming so familiar as for her to not recognise it any more.

But the mood was spoilt soon by the swift and sudden arrival of buffeting snow and screaming winds. The ice cut at Loena's face, and she stumbled along, just barely able to see the person in front of her.

The storm felt like it had come about from nowhere, summoned by nothing.

For a while she carried Pippin, and the warmth of his body was a welcome addition. After too long, though, her headache increase, and her weakness returned, and she had to hand him to Boromir, who carried Merry.

They staggered after each other, half buried in snow as they went. Loena could feel the skin on her face shrivelling and shirking against the cold. Only Legolas seemed unconcerned, walking along the top of the snow with his light, Elven step.

"This is no ordinary storm!" Gimli cried out in frustration, as the winds howled again, and the snow around them seemed to stack up and up upon itself. "It is the ill will of Caradhras. He does not care for Elves and Dwarves!"

"I fear a more familiar enemy may have a hand in this," Gandalf said grimly.

At that point, Legolas called back to the group; "There is a fell voice on the air!"

He was right, Loena realised, closing her eyes against it. It echoed in her head, pounding against her skull.

"It is as I feared," Gandalf called out to the company around him, and then, much louder; "It's Saruman!"

The wind whipped up again, and Loena realised that she wouldn't have been able to hear Gandalf if he'd spoken again, even if he'd yelled to them.

"He's trying to bring down the mountain!" Aragorn called, desperate, clutching Sam and Frodo to his chest. Loena had the sudden thought that if they were to leave Frodo, they might be able to make it through Caradhras unscathed.

The thought went as quickly as it came. Loena closed her eyes bitterly, stretching the fabric of her cloak around her shoulders, begging for some relief.

"Gandalf," Aragorn cried out. Loena blearily opened his eyes and saw him from behind; his tall stature, the imprint of the hobbits by his shoulders, the snow on his hood. "We must turn back!"

Gandalf was unmoved, "No!" he snarled back, and turned to keep pushing.

Loena pushed on behind him, suddenly realising she'd lost all feeling in her toes. If she were to need her balance, it was more than likely that she'd fall. Here, now, on the edge of a treacherous mountain pass, falling was as good as a death sentence.

As they tightened their jaws and pushed on with the painfully slow process, a slow cracking echoed above them, and Loena threw herself and Gimli against the side of the mountain pass. The snow fell down in front of them, smashing down upon where they'd once stood, crashing down the side of the mountain.

"He's trying to bring down the mountain!" Aragorn yelled, and Loena could hear his frustration. "Gandalf, we must turn back."

"_No_!" Gandalf insisted, taking to the edge, raising his staff against the wind. He cried out, a great, stirring spell that was lost to Loena's ears on the whistling wind. He bared himself to the winds, grey robes buffeted around him like flags.

The same voice Legolas had drawn everyone's attention to started again, deep and evil. This time, above their heads, Loena widened her eyes when she saw a great crack of white lightening strike the snow. This time the avalanche was swift, and devastating. Loena had barely a time to gasp for air before the cold, heavy snow piled on top of her.

She stayed like that for a moment, reaching up with her hand. Not even the tips of her fingers seemed to reach the surface. Her lungs began to burn, and she started kicking up, pushing on whatever she could find for a solid surface.

Still nothing.

Red, hot fear pumped through Loena's veins. She opened her mouth against the snow to try to breathe, but felt no give between her mouth and the ice of the snow. She felt as though her lungs in her chest were inverted upon themselves.

Then, just as she felt she couldn't stand another moment, the great oppressive weight crumbled above her, and she was pulled to the air.

She gasped, coughing on the snow. She looked up and saw that it had been Frodo who'd pulled her out.

She forgot her pain, and her desperation, and jerked her hand away from him. He looked at her with worry and hurt.

"Loena," Aragorn clasped at her shoulder, and she, still heaving breaths, clutched at his forearm.

"We must get off the mountain!" Boromir yelled from ahead of her. He was still holding Merry and Pippin, who looked miserable. "Make for the Gap of Rohan—"

_Yes_, Loena thought, energised despite her weakness.

"—and take the west road to my city!"

Loena was thrust back to her sore lungs, and bitter fingers, and taut skin. She swallowed her discontent at the idea of finding themselves in Minas Tirith.

"The Gap of Rohan takes us too close to Isengard!" Aragorn countered, with the proper exasperation for someone who had made the same winning point, in the same argument, for days and days on end.

"If we cannot pass over a mountain," Gimli called out. "Let us go under it! Let us go through the Mines of Moria."

Gandalf, standing at the front and watching over the Fellowship, was silent for a moment. Through the gloom and whiteness around them, Loena swore she saw real fear pass over Gandalf's features.

Then, finally; "Let the Ring-Bearer decide."

_Why_? Loena wanted to demand. She decided to be resolutely against whatever Frodo decided.

"We cannot stay here!" Boromir called out, insistent, desperate. "This will be the death of the Hobbits!"

Gandalf turned his attention to Frodo completely. "Frodo?"

"We will go through the mines," Frodo answered, though there was a waver of uncertainty on his voice.

Gandalf was very grave when he replied. "So be it."


	10. All Fades

They'd travelled for two more days, and Loena excluded herself from the rest of the Fellowship almost absolutely. The snow was far less fierce as they walked from the mountain; the storm seemed to have passed. The going was difficult, but no longer life threatening. Loena gave no word to the questions posed over where they'd stop, or where they'd sleep, or what they'd eat. She ate her food sullenly, and never volunteered to help. Always, always, she found herself looking at Frodo, and had to turn herself away.

_If he irritates you so much_, she asked herself crossly. _Why stare at him so much_?

She slept lightly, if she slept at all. The pain in her head was a constant, irritating ache. She had the urge to ask one of her companions to rub her shoulder, in case it came from tension in her muscles. But the desire to keep herself from them overwhelmed her before she could.

Loena's silence had extended until the two day mark. She'd not said a word to anyone.

They'd only been walking for a few hours. The ground was rock now, with only the odd splash of snow caught on the side of the path.

"Loena, wait here, with me," Gandalf said, and she snapped her head up in surprise. People had said her name, of course, in the days that had passed by, but none had communicated with her so directly. "Aragorn, take the others just up ahead."

Aragorn looked at Loena curiously, but nodded. "As you wish."

Loena watched the rest of the fellowship trail behind him.

"What's going on?" Pippin whispered to Merry.

"I don't know, Pip," Merry said, though he was looking back at Loena with a strange look as he said it.

Loena turned back to Gandalf, feeling the same way she had when her mother would come to scold her. The pounding in her head seemed to increase as she stood still. The urge to leave Gandalf, and go stand with the others was almost too strong to bear.

"Loena," Gandalf said finally, though she wasn't sure how she heard it through the ringing at the back of her head. "What plagues you?" He paused. "I apologise, if the manner by which I told you of Théoden has hurt you. That was never my intent."

Loena looked up at him. Grief at the memory of Théoden hollowed out a curve in her stomach. "I have been dwelling on it much. I feel I must return to Rohan, and do as much as I dare there."

"Accomplishing this quest will bring about the outcome that you seek," Gandalf said, and to her, he seemed rather gratified. "Once the Ring is destroyed, Rohan will be easily freed from the influence of Saruman."

"There is little certainty in that plan," Loena said quietly, with a renewed intensity.

Gandalf raised his eyebrows. "And I suppose you've thought of another one?"

"Give me the Ring, Gandalf," Loena said helplessly. She looked to where she knew Frodo stood, up ahead, under Aragorn's protection. Gandalf closed his eyes slowly, like this was a moment that grieved him. "I can still save Rohan. I can save Théoden, and drive back Saruman."

Gandalf looked at her, with a slow sadness. "The Ring will not give you that power, Loena."

"You told me that Théoden has become a slave to Saruman," Loena pressed desperately. "_You _told me that orc's cross Rohan with near no fear of retribution, cutting down my kinsmen as they go."

"The Ring cannot be wielded by anyone but Sauron," he said, though he said it with gentleness. "You _know _this, maiden."

Loena pictured her homeland burned to the ground, Orc's scampering over the remains of her houses, their horses, her people. She saw the great white hand of Saruman sweep across the plains, killing all, defiling all, in its wake.

"This sounds as if Rohan has fallen," Loena said, a tear falling from her eye, tracing down to the corner of her mouth. "There is no hope left."

"If the Ring is destroyed, hope remains," Gandalf said quietly.

"We are not enough," Loena snapped harshly. "We cannot hope to destroy it. We barely survived Caradhras, and we will not survive Moria."

"We are enough," Gandalf countered her. "Each of us here, gathered, have the strength to do what is needed."

"_None _could have the strength required," Loena said, her voice rising. She saw the camp disturb at her, but none turned to look. "Not a thousand Elves, or a Hundred wizards. The power of Mordor is _too great_."

"Frodo believes he can end this quest," Gandalf was obstinate. Loena wanted to tear at her hair in frustration, he wasn't _listening _to her.

"I don't care _what _he believes," Loena snarled. "He has no _idea_. None of you do! There is no hope, there is _nothing_." She held her jaw. "Nothing but the power we have placed in the hands of an _underserving _halfling."

"Then why do you stay with us, Loena?" Gandalf asked, his voice taking an edge. "Why don't you go home, lick your wounds, and wait for the inevitable!?"

"So you _do_ refuse to give me the Ring," Loena said, feeling helpless and adrift. Tears burned her eyes. "You're as _cruel _as Saruman, allowing his creatures to ransack my country."

"You _cannot wield it_—"

"I could _try_—"

"The Ring has _One master_," Gandalf boomed, and Loena shrunk back from him, watching him with fear. A strange energy had come off him, an expounding, developing shock-wave, echoing around him. Across from them, the other members of the fellowship faced them. "And it's power has _blinded you_."

Loena began to cry, tears streaking down her face. The pain in her head was so deep and absolute that her sight was beginning to narrow, and narrow still.

"Why do you wish for the Ring?" Gandalf demanded, loud still, his voice deep and broad. "_Why do you wish for it_?"

"For the power…" Loena gasped against the pain, but pushed on. She was slumped against the rock beneath her, and her fingers dug against the hard of it. "For the pain—"

"_Why_?"

"For my king!" Loena gasped out. "To save him—"

"The Ring cannot save him! You _know _this—"

"For Rohan!"

"Stop _lying_, Loena—"

"For _ME_!" Loena exploded, and the pain in her head abated. When she looked at Gandalf, she barely saw him. She pushed passed him, desperate now to find Frodo, wrench the Ring from his grasp. She'd travel to Caradhras, she'd travel to the ends of the earth. She'd glimmer like a jewel, beautiful and powerful under the light of the sky. And all who had doubted, all who had thought she'd never live up to the namesake that she swore by, would look at her with wonder and with fear.

Gandalf caught her before she could struggle past him, and she lashed out at him, scraping her fingernails towards his face.

"_Loena_," he said roughly, dodging her attack and grasping her arm. For the appearance of such an old man, he was unnaturally strong. "Stop this! You are not yourself!"

"Let me _go,_ Gandalf!" Loena howled, struggling against his vice-like grip. She twisted as hard as she could, and every moment that she delayed, the pain in her head built again and again. She lashed out, desperate, a cornered animal. "_LET ME GO_."

"You are not yourself!" Gandalf repeated, refusing.

The pain built, and built, and Loena felt revulsion and nausea stir in her stomach at the feeling. Once the pain had made her weak, with barely the strength in her arms to survive the snows of Caradhras. Now, however, the pain made her desperate, and strong. Frodo was _right there_, and soon she'd have the Ring—

Finally, lashing out as hard as she could, she heard a smashing of bone and skin. Gandalf was forced to drop her, and she scrambled off, the pain in her head abating enough for her sight to return to her. She saw that the Fellowship had gathered around themselves, Aragorn at the front, looking at her grimly. She knew Frodo would be in the middle.

_You are not yourself_, a thought demanded entry at the back of her mind. _Stop this_.

The pause was enough for the pain to build again, but it was also enough to make it slightly easier to bear.

She saw flashes, she saw Isildur beneath the tall figure of Sauron painted in Rivendell. She remembered when Bilbo told them of the riddles in the dark, when he had found the Ring, and its old master. Each tortured souls.

Suddenly Loena was very scared. So she stopped. And the world about her seemed to hold its breath.

The pain screamed in her head, worse than she had ever felt it. It felt as though a sword had been dug through the back of her skull. She fell to her knees, bone smarting at the pain, folding in on herself. The screaming red exploded at the back of her head.

She knew that the pain would end with each step she'd take but—

_Every time I stop, the pain returns_, Loena thought. She leant forward, fingernails digging into the dirt. She could barely see for the spots gathering in her eyes.

You are not yourself. That had been what Gandalf had said. He had been right.

Though now, in her pool of pain and torment, red and fiery and evil, she could not remember who she was.

_Loena_, a desperate voice reminded her. She repeated the name like a mantra. _Loena, Loena. Loena_.

Who was Loena?

Lost, she pushed herself up, but barely made it a few feet before she staggered forward and fell to the floor. Her hands slammed down, and her wearied body collapsed against the cold rock. She could barely feel it, slow and numbed. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she would be hurting tomorrow.

Somehow, through the dampness and darkness, she could hear muffled shouting voices. There was a cool, friendly hand cupped on her face, and it felt like cool water on a warm day, but it was not enough.

She cried out, wrenching her hands to her head, pushing her hands into her hair.

And then, a shining, determined thought. Something long harboured, and long known. She saw it against a turning swirl of images; first Gandalf "the Ring is altogether evil", and Frodo smiling up at her and taking her hand, and Aragorn standing before her, telling her the tale of Isildur's bane upon her first knowing him. She saw all of them, and none of them at once, and many others beside that. They played off each other, were both different memories and the same ones at once.

And then, a moment of perfect clarity, she saw her mother smiling at her, laughing, reaching over and pushing Loena's hair back from her shoulder. Around her Rohan stretched on forever, and the air was clear, and the sky was blue. The wheat grass smelt sweet beneath her, and the sun cast her in its golden light.

She _had _hope. Buried deep, and oft forgot.

It was a foolish hope, and it was weak, but she clung to it as the storm raged around her.

_I am Loena, of Rohan_, she forced her mind to form the words, and the pain seemed to howl and increase against her. She fell against it weakly, terrified. She felt as though she were staggering up Caradhras again, stuck against determined, evil wings. _I am Loena! I will not be bowed by you!_

A king is not his country. Birds return north. Fire is furious but then it is doused. Scars fade, and fade, and return.

_All fades_.

A king is not his country. Horses fly like birds, and trees speak to the travellers who walk among them. Fire is biting and warm and the stars are never doused. Scars linger, like the cold.

Loena let the desperate fear go, and sobbed as it reared above her, almost corporeal in its thoroughness. It dissipated through her mind like a calming balm. The pain remained. She was unbowed, unbent, rigid and discerning. She was terrified, and freezing, and still the heavy, hot pain of desire for power screamed against her head.

_Take it_! Loena finally cried. It was a sacrifice she would make to be free, finally free, of the darkness that had dogged her steps.

After Loena had collapsed, the fellowship had gathered around her curiously. They'd seen her arguing loudly with Gandalf, and had seen him try to restrain. She'd barely been able to walk, but she looked rather like a dog as she'd stalked towards them. It had been obvious to Aragorn that Loena had been suffering since Gandalf and he had told her about her King.

They'd gathered around Frodo. Aragorn had stood to the front, and had felt grim when he'd looked into his friend's eyes, and seen nothing of her there.

But then she paused, jaw tight, eyes closed, and cried out.

And she'd collapsed.

"Loena!" Aragorn called, running towards her. Behind him, he felt the hobbits remain with Frodo, and Boromir, Legolas and Gimli come behind him.

They came upon her quickly, and Aragorn cradled her head. He saw some of the anguish dissipate as he placed his hand on the side of her head. He kept it there hopelessly, though, as the anguish returned, and she cried out again.

"The Ring did this to her," Boromir said, voice low with disgust.

"It's evil is absolute," Legolas said, voice tight with emotion.

"Loena!" Aragorn called to her, pulling his hands away from her head and held her fingers. She didn't squeeze back, but he heard her murmur.

"Come on, Lass," Gimli said softly.

Then, barely like a whisper, she made out; "_all fades_."

"Is she dying?" Legolas demanded.

"No," Gandalf announced themselves from behind them. He was a mess; his nose bled where Loena had smashed against it in her escape. He looked exhausted. "The Ring's hold on her was very strong, but not that strong." He looked bitter. "I should have seen it."

"We all should have," Aragorn replied grimly. _All fades_. He grasped her hands a little tighter.

"The old stories never mentioned _this_ in Isildur's trials after he claimed the Ring," Boromir said, fearfully.

"The Ring is a master of manipulation," Gandalf said. He was looking down upon Loena with enormous pity. She had stopped struggling, and seemed to be more peaceful. Her brow was no longer furrowed, and her mouth was slightly agape, like she was sleeping. "It will find any chinks in the armour. Especially," he looked furious. "When that chink has been placed there by a servant of its master."

"You think the White Wizard allowed for this?" Legolas asked, eyes wide. "You think he can reach us here?"

"No, his power is not that great yet," Gandalf said. "But there was something rotten festering in Rohan, and it infected all who came into contact with it. It was as I feared – we have little chance of friendship in Rohan."

"The Ring sensed this," Legolas surmised, looking back to the hobbits, who now guarded the Ringbearer with their little swords back in their sheaths. They were gathered less tightly, and seemed to be discussing whether or not to wander back over.

"Yes," Aragorn said finally. "Saruman ensured Loena was an easy target, whether on purpose or incidentally."

"How did it take so long for her to fall?" Boromir asked, shaking his head. "We travelled with the Ring for _months_."

"It had not counted on the strength of her spirit," Gandalf said, rather fondly, coming down beside Loena and holding his head over her brow. He closed his eyes, murmuring to himself. When he opened them again, he looked aggrieved. "But when the news of Saruman's hold on her king broke her heart, her defences were gone. The Ring sensed this."

"Is Miss Loena alright?" It was Sam that came up behind them. Merry followed him, and then Pippin, and a cautious Frodo at the end.

"She will be," Gandalf answered, drawing himself up from beside her. "That is to say, she will not be alright. But she will wake soon."

Sure enough, Loena began to stir, her mouth closing, and her shoulders pushing against the rock she lay on.

"Gandalf?" she called, eyes still closed, a sheen of sweat over the sickly white of her face.

"Here, Loena," he told her, holding her hand.

She opened her eyes, and Aragorn caught his breath when he saw—

For instead of her dark blue irises, a white sheen had fallen across her eyes. Like a sickness.

"I can't see," she said, voice weak.

"What's wrong with her eyes?" Pippin asked Merry in a low voice.

Her desire for the Ring had taken Loena's sight.

Aragorn looked at Gandalf, who seemed grave, but unsurprised.

"We must get her to Lothlórien," Legolas said quickly. "The magic of the elves could cure her."

"Yes," Gandalf nodded slowly. To Aragorn, his words were too slow, too laboured, too sad, to be convincing. "But for now, she will have to reckon with the efforts of a Ranger and an old man." Gandalf turned to Loena, who was staring unseeing into the sky. She didn't seem surprised by the outcome. "Loena, Aragorn and I will try to right this, but I cannot promise too much success."

"Leave it," she said despondently. Her voice was so light, and sad. "It is my penance. For breaking my oath."

"No oath was broken," Gandalf corrected her. "Frodo is well, and the Ring remains within his grasp."

"_Leave _it, Gandalf—"

"No," Gandalf interrupted her, growing irritated. "I would not let you take the Ring, and nor would I have let you suffer for resisting its power." He paused. "Do you desire it still?"

Loena paused, and nodded slowly. Aragorn felt his heart sink. "I do, but…" she swallowed. "It is manageable."

_All fades_, Aragorn remembered. He held the hand nearest to him, whilst Gandalf maintained his hold on the other.

"Then you are back to normal," Gandalf said, relieved. "For all desire the Ring. How is the pain in your head?"

At this Loena let out a soft sigh, and even smiled. "Gone."

Gandalf smiled in relief, and moved his hand to the side of his head. He looked to Aragorn, who nodded in understanding.

The two of them worked on Loena for the next hour. Aragorn murmured in Sindarin even as he just held her hand. Gandalf's staff glowed intermittently as he worked, and he grew increasingly tired as the hour raged on. By the time the sun had come to its zenith, Aragorn was shaking from exhaustion.

The others had gone back to their camp, preparing lunch and talking in a low voice. As they worked, each would turn to look back with curiosity.

When they were done, they sat Loena up. She blinked her dead eyes as she rose, and looked around. She looked first in Gandalf's direction, and then his.

"How goes your sight, Lady?" Aragorn asked her.

"I can make out…some brief flashes of light," Loena said, slowly, voice like a foal's first, uneasy step. "Barely."

"It may not feel like much of a victory," Gandalf said. "But it was an important moment of healing. Now your sight may be restored by those with healing powers stronger than ours."

Loena nodded her understanding, and stood. She nearly toppled, and Aragorn shot up to catch her. She leant against him, before pushing off, tottering on her uncertain feet.

"Here," he said, grasping her wrist and placing her hand on her arm. "Walk with me."

"Aragorn—" she started.

But he cut her off. "I know what you would say, Loena." He felt her hand tense against his arm. "And I would not hear it. We will not send you back, without sight."

"I cannot come with you," Loena countered, jaw tight. "I would put the entire Fellowship in danger."

"We will not desert a friend," Gandalf said.

Loena looked unconvinced. "I broke my oath."

"Nearly," Gandalf allowed. "But, in the end, you did not."

Loena hesitated yet. Then, in a soft voice. "I cannot face him."

"Frodo will forgive you, and will do so easily," Aragorn said softly. He gazed upon her, and saw how she bowed her head in shame. Her hands began to twist together, fingers tugging at fingers. "These bonds of fellowship are strong ones." He looked at her intently. "Do not think I didn't notice your isolation, Loena. It is in the strength of our dedication to each other that we will prevail. The Ring knew this, it was why it made you lonely, forced you into aloneness."

"I am alone now," Loena said, emotion filling her voice, and tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. "Alone now in a dark world. There is nothing, it is absolute." She shuddered a breath, and blinked hard, and worked so no tears would fall. "Forgive me." She shook her head. "I will endure this."

"I trust that you will."

The going became slower with Loena blinded. She learnt how to do many things for herself quickly, but there were some that she couldn't. She could eat well, and learnt to dress herself in the dark. She could draw and sheath her sword with relative fluidity, and she could roll out her bed-stuff on feel alone.

Walking was difficult. She would hold onto a rope tied onto the back of Aragorn's pack, and he would direct her should the terrain become difficult. She felt like she were a horse being led by its rider, and she did not like the feeling at all. However, she knew better than to complain.

Sometimes, when the going was especially treacherous, he or Boromir would carry her like a child.

She never felt more useless when that happened, though both made an effort to keep her spirits up. Aragorn might sing, or Boromir might tell her stories. At first both the songs and the stories were things of old, but as those ran out, they'd come to newer, more interesting things. Aragorn sung songs he'd heard composed around near the Shire, and even a few riding and drinking songs from Rohan that Loena had never heard. Boromir ran out of stories of great warriors of Minas Tirith, and began to tell her about his brother and their shared childhood.

"Never a great warrior, our Faramir," Boromir chuckled to himself. Loena like it when he laughed, she could feel the vibrations under her fingers. "The cleverest of men, though, and the kindest. He is well loved by the men he leads."

"I should like to meet him again," Loena said, barely remembering the shy Steward's son with a scraggly mop of hair and sad, blue eyes from a lifetime ago.

"Then you shall," Boromir pronounced. "Though I may need to warn you in advance, he would not make a great husband. His head is always in some book or another."

Loena laughed.

At the middle of the day, or at night, the hobbits came out to her. Slowly and hesitantly at first, but with more gumption as the days went on. Sam was the kindest, always asking how she was, patting her hand as he walked beside her so that she'd know he was there. Pippin was the loudest, and most cheerful. He was the first one to make jokes around her after it had happened, which she appreciated. All had started to treat her as though she were a walking corpse. Merry told her the most stories about the Shire, and would regale her with the trouble she and Frodo would get up to whenever they were forced to visit their wretched relative's the Sackville-Bagginses.

Frodo was the most quiet. He spoke to her, in his high, keen voice, but never for very long, and never alone. She did not blame him for being wary, for the temptation of the Ring was still there. Every day it faded more, and it was nothing compared to the drive that had burnt her mind and clouded her sight, but she knew in her heart that it would never truly disappear.

She was sitting alone, eating and listening out around her. With her sight gone, she relied on her ears more than ever. She was surprised at their increasing sensitivity. She heard Frodo approach, and she knew it was Frodo from the sound of the fine armour he wore under his shirt. She did not think anyone else knew about it, but with her hearing the way it was, it was impossible not to notice.

"Loena," he said softly, coming before her.

"Frodo," she answered, her voice equally quiet. "Have you come to sit with me?"

Frodo swallowed. "Yes."

"I'll make some room-?"

"No, I'm fine to sit just here," Frodo said, stammered really, and she heard him slide to the ground, and tuck his cloak around himself.

"I am so _sorry_," Loena said, wishing she could find Frodo's eyes with her own to prove how emphatic she was. "I can't—"

"There's nothing to apologise for," Frodo said, and Loena's heart beat painfully as she heard how tired he was, and how sincere. "I promised I would help you carry your burden, remember?"

Loena remembered. Those fleeting moments before the hold of the Ring had descended, and after she'd learnt about Théoden. Perhaps if she'd been stronger in that moment, and taken Frodo's words to heart, she might've resisted the Ring completely.

"Of course," she said, voice still soft. "But…" she balled her hands together. "Frodo…I did not bear my burden at _all_. I dropped it, completely." She did not want to sound self-pitying, but she felt it honestly. "I have not the strength that you do, that all the others do."

"I know you are trying to punish yourself," Frodo said. "But you must _not_. When we come to Lothlórien, you must accept their healing help." Frodo paused, before, "I know you told Gandalf and Aragorn to leave you completely blind."

Loena raised her head, and could just make out the blurry shape of Frodo in front of her. It hurt her eyes, and strained them, so she dropped her sight again. "It is as I deserve. An oath-breaker, a _deceiver_."

"You broke no oaths, and deceived no one," Frodo said firmly. "Saruman had infected you. The Ring is a power none here could hope to fight against. You resisted, in the end, and that alone is worthy of praise." He stopped, and took a shuddering breath. "I know better than most the power of the Ring's…charms. I know how it casts a net into your mind, feels for your weaknesses, and manipulates them as easily as you or I breathe."

"I did not know where my own greed ended, and its greed began," Loena admitted. She had spent most of the past few days meditating on her time as a near-mute, raging against all who were around her. "Or where my true feelings lay and its…_hatred_ began."

"I understand," Frodo said simply, and she felt him hold her hand. Just as they had done when they'd turned away from the Gap of Rohan.

She heard Gandalf murmur to Aragorn, and pulled herself up.

"Come," she said. "Gandalf shall be announcing that we are moving on in just a moment."

Frodo was surprised. "How did you hear that? He and Aragorn are on the other side of camp."

"When sight leaves, the other senses strive to compensate," Loena explained with a shrug. "I've seen it before, in Rohan, with the blind who walk the city streets."

"How intriguing," Frodo said, much more the curious Hobbit she'd met in Rivendell than he had been in a long time. "Are there many of these blind men in Rohan?"

Loena laughed, and it felt like a breath of fresh air. The last time she must have laughed, would have been when Boromir was sparring with Merry and Pippin, and then she had laughed so hard that her stomach had hurt. That had been weeks ago.

"Come, walk with me," Loena said. "When we start up again. I'll tell you everything I know."


	11. The Mines Deep

**Hello everyone!**

**No one likes these, so I'll make it quick - thank you to everyone reading thus far! I am writing a story about the life of Beornia (the relative of Leona) to give some sort of context for my improvised Lore. It's called "Heiress of the Riddermark" and its not as fun as this, but there are SOME characters we know and love popping up.**

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They arrived at the doors of Moria after sundown that night. Loena was walking beside Legolas, who had been guiding her with the rope with relative ease. He'd picked it up the necessary skills to guide her fastest of their companions; best at communicating quickly in a way she could understand.

The darkness had become absolute around her. Other than those first moments of blurred light after Aragorn and Gandalf had attended to her, she had seen nothing. It was like a prison, that deep thrown darkness. She stumbled and stubbed her toe more times than she cared to count.

"The walls of Moria!" Gimli cried as they approached.

"Here the Elven-Way from Hollin," Gandalf said grandly and Loena felt the slow down of the company as they approached. She shuffled her feet and slowed, nearly tripping as she toed a rock in her way. "The west-door was made chiefly for the Elves use in their traffic with the lords of Moria. Those were happier days, when there was still a close friendship between Dwarves and Elves."

"It was not the fault of the Dwarves that the friendship waned," Gimli growled, a few steps ahead of Loena and Legolas.

"I have not heard that it was the fault of the Elves," Legolas snapped back.

Loena wished she could see them, picturing the great jewels and carvings that would adorn the mountain before her. To her right she could hear the quiet lapping of tiny waves on the shore-line, and could feel a sudden chill, and realised that there must be a great lake before the entrance.

"Dwarf walls are invisible when closed," Gimli said, and Loena felt slightly relieved. At least she wasn't missing out on too much, then.

"Yes, Gimli," Loena heard Gandalf walk around her, and towards the front of the company. "Their own masters cannot find them if their secrets are forgotten."

Beside her, Legolas chuckled. "Why doesn't that surprise me?"

"It seems an unnecessary precaution," Loena said to him in a low voice.

"Dwarves are great fans of over-engineering," Legolas agreed.

She heard a much louder splash at the beach of the lake, and heard Frodo gasp and draw back. Loena pictured him stepping into it accidentally, and drawing back.

"Well, let's see," Gandalf said, disembodied voice thrown her way from ahead. "Ithildin. It mirrors only stars and moonlight."

Beside her, Loena heard Legolas lightly gasp.

"What's happened?" Loena asked.

"The moon has come out from behind the gathered cloud," Legolas narrated to her, and they began to walk again. "It shines on the door. It has become illuminated, great spiralling decorations of leaf and vine, as well as writings."

"It reads, 'The doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak Friend, and Enter," Gandalf announced.

"What do you suppose that means?" Merry asked, somewhere from Loena's right.

"Oh, it's quite simple," Gandalf said, rather cheerfully. "If you are a friend, you speak the password and the doors will open."

"If an enemy spoke the words, would the doors open also?" Loena asked.

Beside her, Legolas laughed. "I believe they would, though it is entertaining to think of. I wonder, if one of Durin's folk had a falling out with a friend, whether they'd be able to access it."

"What if they were slightly at odds with each other, and neither friend, nor foe?" Loena asked.

Legolas mused, "We may be overthinking this. I doubt the dwarves put so much thought into it."

"I feel as though I must get indignant now, on their behalf."

"Do you _know _the word, Gandalf?" Boromir asked.

"No," Gandalf replied, and Loena felt her stomach plummet, and felt hopelessness descend.

"Then what was the use of bringing us to this accursed spot!" Boromir charged, and Loena near winced as his voice echoed louder and angrier. "You told us once that you had passed through the Mines. How could that be, if you did not know how to enter?"

"I do not know the word – yet," Gandalf stressed, irritated. "And to answer your second question, I did not enter this way. I came from the East. If you must know, from the inside you may thrust these doors open with your hands. From the outside, nothing will move them save the spell of command."

Loena wondered if they were all going to be standing, gathered at the base of the mountain, as Gandalf tried every word in Elvish and Dwarfish in every combination he could think of. The thought made her feel rather despondent, but also relieved. She had had a foreboding feeling about the Mines; firstly by Gloin's tale at the council that none had spoken to any inside in a year, and secondly by Gandalf's insistence that they do not pass through that way.

Gandalf called out, his words deep with magic and power. All around them Loena felt a gathering warmth, and a slight breeze against the soft skin on her face and on the underside of her arms.

_"Annon Edhellen, edro hi ammen! Fennas Nogothrim, lasto beth lammen!"_

Loena almost felt prepared to stand and move, but all around her was quiet. She could not hear the doors of Moria opening up.

"Nothing's happening," Pippin said, matter-of-factly.

"I once knew every spell in all the tongues of Elves, Men and Orcs," Gandalf said grimly.

"What are you going to do, then?" Pippin asked, undaunted, somehow, by the clear irritation in the wizard's voice.

"Knock the doors with your head, Peregrin Took," Gandalf snapped. "But if that does not shatter them, and I am allowed a little peace from foolish questions, I will seek for the opening words."

Each of the Fellowship drifted from watching while Gandalf tried his combinations of words. Aragorn sent Bill away, and Sam said a tearful farewell.

"Horses remember the tracks of their owners," Loena told him confidently, as he sat, dejected, by her side. She ached to reach over to him, and comfort him with a hand to his back. But she knew she would simply be flailing as she reached across, so she kept her hand by her side. "He will find you again."

"I don't doubt it," Sam said. "He's such a clever horse." He sobbed a little. "I'm just awful sad to see him go. He was my last connection to home."

The urge to reach out and grasp his hand intensified in that moment. She stilled herself once more, worried that in the effort, she'd accidentally hit him in the face.

They'd sorted their clothes out, the ones that they'd carry through the caves and the ones that they'd leave behind. Gimli helped Loena with hers, describing each garment as he went through. By the end, Loena had gotten rid of all her other clothes, as well as anything that had been a source of comfort along their journey. If the dwarves were as hospitable as Gimli said, then she would be able to replace them by the time they entered.

Across from her, Loena heard a splash, and turned her head sharply. She heard another one, and the lapping at the edge of the pond seemed to sound louder.

"Who threw that, Gimli?" Loena asked.

"Merry, and Peregrin," he answered her.

"Have they stopped?" She asked.

"Yes," Gimli informed her. "Aragorn has staid their hand."

"Good," she said, wishing the dread in her stomach would leave her be.

Loena heard the clank of Gandalf's staff on the ground, and then he huffed. "Oh! It's useless!"

The water stirred behind her, and Loena huddled her cloak around her shoulders. She ignored it as best she could, and decided to worry instead that they'd have to track back to Caradhras, and give the mountain pass another go.

From off to her side, she heard Frodo push up and stand. "It's a riddle! Speak 'friend' and enter. What's the elvish word for friend?"

"_Mellon_," Gandalf spoke, and before her, Loena heard a great cracking and creaking, and she got to her feet. A rush of old, stale air pushed out across her, and she breathed it in with surprise. Together they all walked across, with her holding onto Aragorn's elbow for guidance. The terrain was rocky, but not rocky enough for her to be carried.

Gimli was a stark contrast to the rest of the party. He moved over the threshold with a booming cheer. "Soon, master Elf, you will enjoy the fabled hospitality of the Dwarves! Roaring fires, malt beer, ripe meet off the bone!" Loena's mouth watered at the thought of it. "And they call it a Mine! A _Mine_!"

Loena felt something crack underfoot, like a piece of thin, brittle rock.

"What was that?" she asked Aragorn, and heard him gasp beside her.

"This is no Mine," Boromir said, loudly, desperately. "This is a tomb!"

Aragorn filled Loena in quickly. "Bones lie all around us of slain Dwarves, the thing you stood upon was a…" she heard him pause. "The bone of a skull."

Loena felt revulsion in her stomach, as well as the dreaded fear knot itself deeper into her fingers. "We must leave," she said hollowly. "_Now_."

"Oh _no_!" Gimli's call was great, and terrible. Desperate with anguish, an expanding cry that echoed the hall. "_No_!"

Loena couldn't imagine it; the sight of slain kinsman littering the floor. If they were so near the door, they must have been achingly close to escape as well. Fear netted itself in the back of her throat. She took a step backwards.

"Goblins!" Legolas cried out.

Loena pushed back, but Aragorn stilled her. "Legolas has found that the arrows are Goblin arrows," He told her quickly. "We are in no danger yet."

"We should have never come here!" Boromir called out. The panic grew around Loena, and she could feel the tension rising in her companions. It seemed, suddenly, terribly noisy and busy. Everything grew about her, she now so infinitesimally tiny and frightened. "Now! Get out of here! Get out!"

Aragorn held Loena tightly against his arm and turned her around.

But there was a splash, and the _snick _of something large and wet speeding through the air. Loena felt her panic rise again, and clutched at Aragorn's arm.

"Frodo!" The Hobbits yelled, and she could hear their fear.

Aragorn cursed beside her. "Stay here," he ordered. "Loena! Do not move!"

She nodded soundlessly, and let go of his arm quickly. She heard Aragorn yell and run from her, towards where she knew the entrance of the Mines was. The sounds were terrifying, and without explanation, and only her imagination to guide her, it felt far worse. She went to grab at her sword, knowing she'd feel better for it resting against her fingers. It took her an embarrassingly long time to find the hilt, despite the weight of the scabbard to guide her. She found _G__íed _nonetheless, and drew it quickly.

She heard the cries of warfare, and the splashes of the pond out the front of the Mines. She heard Aragorn yelling out, and Frodo calling for him. She heard the sharp sound of sword being buried into flesh, and she heard the twang of a bow-string.

She heard Gandalf bellow; "Into the Mines!" and then hears all the fellowship call for each other. Another twang as an arrow was released from a bow, and then the thundering arrival of her friends becoming louder, and louder, as they pushed back into Moria.

The excitement is far from over, for above their heads the rock begins to crack and fall. Loena jumped back, and winced as a rock fell close enough for dust to rise up and tickle her hands.

"Aragorn!" She called desperately.

"Here," he said beside her, pulling her arm and holding her safely by his side. She leaned on him as they ran, and felt that his clothes had become rather wet. She ignored it, and focused on running with as much confidence as she could bear. Soon after they'd started, Aragorn slowed again, and the sounds of rock falling were muffled, as though they were happening now exclusively on the outside of the cage.

"The way is blocked," Aragorn murmured to her, and he sounded light and tired with worry. "Rocks have fallen and the wall has collapsed. We will not be able to leave this place."

Loena's heart hammered in her chest. "But the _Goblins_—"

"I know."

"_Aragorn_, if there are _Goblins_—"

"We have now but one choice," Gandalf said, interrupting her, stern and as grave as the mountain above them. "We must face the long dark of Moria."

"What _was _that thing?" Loena asked, head spinning. She gripped at the cheap, dampened cloth Aragorn dressed himself in, desperate to find something to hold onto, something to orientate herself. "I heard many strange noises from it…was it a creature? Was it the keeper of the pond?"

"A creature of many tentacles, and a purely evil thing," Gandalf replied to her. "There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world."

Despite the dark, all of them unconsciously, and unanimously, decided to keep walking for several more hours yet. None wanted to stay in Moria that was entirely necessary. The way was rather unencumbered, so Loena was given her rope again, and she trailed behind Boromir, who was guiding her.

"Damn Saruman and his _blasted _spies," Boromir said, half to himself and half to her. "I cannot help but think how unfortunate it was for the Gap of Rohan to be closed."

"He must have been trying to force us this way," Loena said absently.

She nearly ran into Boromir, and realised he must have stopped at the thought of it.

"Sorry," he said to her quickly.

"No bother," she dismissed it quickly. "Why did you stop?"

"I hope you're wrong," Boromir said in way of answer. "I don't want to think what sort of devils lie in wait for us here, now, at Saruman's command."

"At least in Moria, Gandalf and Saruman seem to be on relatively similar footing," Loena said. "It was easy to turn the storm at Caradhras against us, and it would be a simple thing to protect the gap of Rohan when it is so close to Orthanc. Down here both Gandalf and Saruman are expert."

Boromir didn't seem convinced. "Saruman has had months to prepare for our coming. And we number only ten."

"That's one better than nine," Loena tried, cheerfully, but Boromir fell silent ahead of her. She felt rather bad, as well, after saying it, and realising how little she would be of use in a fight. What use was being able to hold a sword, if she could not swing it? Her useless bow thumped on her back as she walked. She ignored it best as she could, but with every step it hit against her spine, and she felt as though it were slamming with the beat of a cruel chant; _ues-less, use-less, use-less._

"Careful now," Gandalf said to the group, as they ascended the stairs. Loena could hear nothing to indicate what was going on around her, but she knew a great cavern yawned up at them from below, and an impossible distance surrounded them and up, and up above. "Let us hope our journey has, thenceforth, gone unnoticed."

Figuring out how to get Loena up the stairs had been a challenge. The path was too narrow for her to be carried, and the steps were too strenuous for one person to port her up. She could not walk side to side with someone, for fear of taking a misstep and one of them ending up falling to their doom. She could not walk along behind with her rope, as she'd done for the past days, because the stairs turned and bent, and had been crafted into odd sizes.

In the end, Loena was to hug to the wall as tightly as she could, and grasp the hand of Legolas in front of her, who could support her if she fell. He was as comfortable walking sideways as he was walking straight up the stairs. He took to the role cheerfully, and communicated well whenever a stair was particularly high, or an angle they were taking particularly sharp.

"The wealth of Moria was not in gold or jewels," Gandalf said, ahead of them. "But in _Mithril_."

"It is in veins in the walls beside us," Legolas told her, and they took the next step together. "It sparkles like starlight in the glow of Mithrandir's light."

"Bilbo had a shirt of _mithril _rings that Thorin gave him," Gandalf said, addressing the entire company.

"A little higher on this one," Legolas murmured to her.

She thanked him, and hoisted her foot a little higher, pulling herself up after him.

"What!" Gimli started. "A corslet of Moria-Silver? That was a kingly gift!"

"Yes, and, I never told him," Gandalf said, sounding nostalgic. "But its worth was greater than the value of the whole Shire and everything in it."

Loena realised that the faint, clinking sound she'd come to associate with Frodo surely _must_ have been the coat of _mithril_. She imagined that it had been given to him by his uncle before they had made their leave from Rivendell.

She smirked, and made to call out, but stopped herself at the last moment, ducking her head down and pushing up to the next step.

It could be another corslet, she did consider. She did, however, privately doubt it. In the quiet after Gandalf's pronouncement, Frodo had said nothing anyway. With something close to relief, she decided to follow suit. She was certain that he would have some reason for keeping the silver secret.

It was to be another day of long walking. Rushing through the abandoned Mine as quickly as possible still remained the Fellowship's main prerogative. By the time they had alighted the stairs, they still thought they had many hours ahead of them. Gandalf had confirmed that the rest of the way were flat, and Loena was given some of her previous freedoms. Despite his misgivings, Gandalf allowed Pippin to guide her this time.

He was so nervous that he overcompensated. "The floor is sloping upward!" Pippin yelled.

"Quiet!" Gandalf ordered from the front. "Besides! The floor is sloping downward."

"It sloped upward _slightly _for just a moment," Pippin amended, mostly telling Loena. "But yes, general trend is sort of downward."

"Sort of downward?" Loena asked. "How can something be _sort of _downward? Surely down, straight and up are absolutes."

Merry cackled, who had been walking behind her. "I think she's got you there, Pip."

"The slope isn't all that steep," Sam keyed in ahead. "I'd be sayin the same thing, Pippin."

"_Thank _you Sam," Pippin said. "Loena, there's some loose rock just here."

Loena walked a little more gingerly by his order. She felt them beneath the soles of her feet – they were definitely not big enough to warrant attention. She sighed, almost wishing for Boromir and his dark mood instead of Pippin's meticulous caretaking.

"It depends whether or not you mean for it to be taken literally," Frodo called back. Loena wondered how long he'd been pondering over it. "Sometimes words like 'sort-of' are just used to fill in the space between normal dialogue."

"Can we talk about something else?" Loena asked, feeling as though she'd stepped back in time to her tutoring in Minas Tirith, and was about to be lectured on the grammatical formation of positive clauses.

"You brought it up," Pippin told her. "Careful! Here! The ground's a bit cracked."

Loena walked on as normal, and could feel not distinguishable difference between the ground she walked now and the ground she'd been walking just before. "You were the one who said 'sort-of'."

"I say 'sort-of' all the time," Pippin countered. "You were the one who suddenly has an issue with it. The ground isn't cracked any more, by the way. You can walk normally again."

Loena hadn't really changed how she'd walked, but she lengthened her stride a little and did her best to relax into each step. "I can't remember a time before now that you've said 'sort-of'."

"Well, that's hardly proof," Pippin countered. "Ground is cracked again."

Loena set back to her usual stride, long, faux confident strokes now gone.

"I don't remember either, Pip," Merry said smugly.

"I rightly don't," Sam admitted ahead.

"This is a stupid argument," Frodo told them. "You'll never settle it."

The conversation abruptly ended, and Loena staggered into Pippin.

"Pip!" she hissed.

"Sorry!" he yelped. "Gandalf's just stopped, and well, it was all rather sudden—"

"How could you have been annoyin' all of us for _hours _with your natterin'," Sam said hotly. "And you forget to pipe up _now_?"

"I am sorry Loena," Pippin said, plaintive.

"It's alright," she sighed, irritated, but full well in the knowledge that he probably hurt more than she did. "Why did we stop?"

"Gandalf is up ahead," Frodo described. "He's standing before three different doorways. He looks—"

"I have no memory of this place," Gandalf said, hollowly, as if to answer her.

"Lost," Frodo finished simply, gloomily.

"Loena!" Gimli greeted her, and she felt him sit by her left. The Hobbits had left her to rest atop a rather large boulder as they waited. "How do you fare?"

Loena considered for a moment. "Well. Or, as well as can be expected. How, you?"

Gimli stopped, and Loena suddenly, stupidly, realised the enormity of what she'd just asked him. He was, obviously, not _well_. They sat in the greatest Mine of his people, now dusted with the bones of his kin.

"I am sorry," Loena said quietly. "You do not have to answer. I know you must be in pain."

"Thank you," he said gruffly. He paused again, and the silence bloomed between them. "I only came to say…" he trailed off as quickly as he'd started talking again. "I only meant to talk to you, because I feel as though I haven't…for a time."

Since her, _incident_, Loena supposed. She felt equal parts ashamed and warmed.

She let her voice go light. "What shall we speak of, Master Dwarf?"

"How about our poncy princeling over _here_," Gimli muttered, and Loena entertained herself by imagining Gimli shooting Legolas with a dark look.

Loena laughed. "I'm sure he can hear us, Gimli."

"The ears of the First Born are quite adept," Legolas called, somewhere across the cave.

"Why do you say that?" Sam asked, his voice far fainter, somewhere across the room.

"No reason in particular," Legolas said airily.

Loena chuckled, and Gimli muttered next to her. With her newly sensitive ears, she was pretty certain he'd muttered something about _overcompensating_ and _low birth-rate_, but she decided to leave his rumblings to himself.

"Describe it to me," Loena said suddenly.

"Describe the…"

"The Mines," Loena said, a little breathlessly. "I am saddened that I cannot. I have seen many things since I left Edoras, but nothing of the Dwarves."

"That is a tragedy," Gimli said, and he did seem truly saddened. "For the creations of my people are strong, and large. Stone is as familiar to us as our own flesh, and we're born from it as much as we're born from our mothers. The mountains yearn for our touch, and when we respond, they bless us with a great, perfect beauty."

Loena tried to picture it before her eyes, but all she could see was a great empty room.

"What of Moria?" Loena asked, a little desperately.

Gimli paused. "I had not…I have not been to Moria before today," he admitted. "We have not seen the city yet, and as for the Mine, well…I'd not do it justice, not in its current state."

Loena stopped. She knew that his reluctance came more from his anguish over the decrepit failure Moria must now seem to him. An eternity of empty halls, lines of _mithril _unfinished and unmined, great walls coated with grime and dust, once-proud floors stained with age and disuse. Loena wished she could see it, still, if just to imagine what it would have looked like in it's golden age.

"You told me you came from the city under the Mountain," Loena said, remembering. "What was it like there?"

"Ah! The Lonely Mountain!" Gimli said, and she could hear the wistfulness on his voice. "Great caverns of blue and gold! Hollowed and triangular, as high as the mountain allowed, and as deep as we could dig. You must imagine – the roof is as high as the sky above your head. The people are rich and fat, and kind. The women adorn their doors with jewels in the shapes of flowers, and they wear emeralds and rubies in the hair of their beards. All is warm, and all is beautiful."

"I should dearly love to s—" Loena stopped herself. "I should like to visit, one day."

If Gimli had known what she'd nearly said, he didn't say anything. "You shall! We all shall go, and feast in the halls of my father."

Loena remembered the food Gimli had described as they'd first entered Moria, and her mouth watered. "Careful, now, after all this questing I might just be hungry enough to eat through all your stores."

Gimli snorted. "A brave notion, but not even the hungriest lass in Middle-Earth could out-eat a Dwarf with a belly that needs filling."

"Ah! It's this way!" Gandalf called back, and Loena turned her head towards the sound in surprise.

"He's remembered!" Merry called, joyed.

"No!" Gandalf replied merrily, and Loena felt her exhalation deflate slightly. "The air doesn't smell so foul down here. If in doubt, Meriadoc, always follow your nose!"

"Like a bloodhound," Loena muttered humourlessly.

"Come, Loena," Gimli said. "We can always turn around. I shall guide you."

Loena accepted the end of her rope with a smile, turning it through her fingers.

Together, the Fellowship followed Gandalf through the portal, and down through the dark.


	12. Hollow Drums

"Behold, the great realm and Dwarf city of Darrowdelf," Gandalf said, his footsteps echoing a little ahead of Loena.

Loena was glad Legolas had come to stand near her, for she didn't even have to ask him to explain it.

"A grand, high roof," Legolas said softly. "An expanse of halls, woven from the rock. Tall pillars support the stone far above our heads, which are arched, like the breathing sky."

"It's a glimmer of what it once was," Gimli said, morose, holding the rope that led her still. "But still, a true thing of wonder."

Loena wondered, if Gandalf was right and the Elves at Lorien _could_ restore her sight, whether she'd have the stamina to return here to see the curved ceilings and great, stone pillars for herself. She somehow doubted it. Legolas's descriptions were beautiful, and she could treasure the way her mind felt when she heard them – a small opportunity to see the world though Elven eyes.

"Ah! The sun rises," Legolas said, and Loena could hear his relief. "We have come through the night."

"How can you see it?" Loena frowned. "I thought we'd descended below the earth."

"We have re-emerged," Aragorn said, and she started. She hadn't realised that he'd come to stand near her. "The great Dwarven cities were ingenious with how they used light, and shadow, to illuminate their cities."

Loena dearly wished for the warm of the sun on her face. She imagined she'd look grimy, and pale. Her hair dank, and dark with oils. The underground did not suit her. She was itching for a field to run through.

She felt the string between her and Gimli go taut, and then completely loose.

"Gimli?" she asked, stopped, unsure.

"_Oh_!" He called, and heard him begin to run from her.

"Gimli!" Gandalf called after him.

"Where has he gone?" Loena asked, frantic, bemused.

"The sun has revealed the Chamber of Mazarbul," Legolas said grimy. "Here," she felt him pick the rope from the ground. She clutched at her end with uncertainty. "Follow me."

"Gimli!" She called after him, as the company moved to follow them. "Could we go faster?" she asked Legolas.

He obliged her, and they broke into a slow trot. By the time they came to the Chamber, Loena felt the difference between the temperature and heaviness of the air as they entered. Inside, everything seemed a lot more stifled, and more intimate. She could hear Gimli's sobs clearly.

"_No_!" He cried, and her heart broke for him.

She imagined coming home to Edoras and finding all she loved dead, with their bones bent and rotting. She imagined walking through its empty halls, eerily quiet and spoilt. She imagined how her soul would keen as she moved, how hopelessness would seep through her like poison from a snake bite. By all rights, Gimli should leave, now, and return to Erebor. There he could be with his people, and mourn his kin in peace.

_Faithless is he who says farewell when the road darkens_, Gimli had said, as they'd turned onto the path for Mordor.

"Here lies Balin, son of Fundin, Lord of Moria," Gandalf read, his voice deep and sombre.

Gimli was as stanch as his word, and he would not desert them for his homeland. These were, however, dark roads indeed.

"It is as I feared, then," Gandalf said. There was a great swashing (like his hat and staff had been handed to Pippin).

Loena heard Gandalf shuffle around the crypt, as the others stood still, silent and respectful. She heard him pick something heavy off the ground, and the ruffling of pages told her that it was a book.

"We _must _move on," Legolas said, quietly enough that Loena hadn't intended for her to hear him. He must have spoken to Aragorn, for she could not imagine even Legolas would disturb Gimli as he mourned, and Boromir and the hobbits stood apart from them. "We cannot linger!"

"_Legolas_," Loena chided softly, but loudly enough that she knew he'd hear her.

"_They have taken the bridge_," Gandalf started to read, careful, grave, moved. "_And the second hall. We have barred the gates, but cannot hold them for long. The ground shakes. Drums—"_

Loena's arms layered with goose bumps, she shivered against the chill that spilt down her back.

"_Drums in the deep._" Loena hears the ancient page turn, crisp as he smoothed it down. "_We cannot get out. A shadow moves in the dark. We cannot get out." _Gandalf paused. "_They are coming_."

As he finished, a great crack and smash thundered out through the room. Loena jumped, her heart bursting through her chest.

"What was that?" she asked quickly, breathless with fear.

"Pippin has knocked a corpse from its rest down a shaft," Aragorn answered her. She could hear a tightness to his words, like he'd jumped as well.

"_Quiet_," Gandalf ordered, and all fell silent. Loena closed her eyes, focusing on listening, as closely as she could. She could hear Aragorn breathing beside her, and Gimli's laboured breaths a little further away. Other than that, there was silence. She released her breath when she realised she'd been holding it.

"_Fool _of a Took!" Gandalf snapped. "Throw yourself in next time and rid us of your stupidity!"

Loena let out a long, slow breath, feeling the tightness in her chest slowly expand. She kept her hand around the hilt of her sword.

_Useless_, she thought helplessly. _What point is a sword when I can't see the chest to bury it into_?

There was a murmuring spread about the room, discontent rolled like waves. She felt it urgently now, the desire to get out, to _leave_. She knew she must stay, and comfort Gimli, and let him grieve. But there was a sudden nakedness about them, like they were being watched.

Loena thought it had been a trick of her tired brain when she hard the first _boom_.

But then the second came, and then the third.

"_Gandalf_—" she stammered, and as she said it, the drums came out louder, and then louder again, the booms picking up pace. It seemed with each strike that the goblins were communicating with them

_Boom_. Death. Boom. _Death_. _Death. Death_.

"Frodo!" Sam cried, and Loena snapped her head in his direction.

"Frodo's sword glow blue," Legolas said to her quickly.

Loena, in her fright, had forgotten what that meant. "How—"

"Orcs come," Aragorn informed her quickly.

"What do I do?" She asked desperately. "I can't—"

"Gandalf?" Aragorn called across the crypt.

Gandalf must have gotten his meaning immediately. "Come, Loena, I can place you in a sleep."

Loena had a sudden, terrible image of her waking, alone in her dark universe, with her slain friends lying around her. She imagined crawling across the corpses, and finding Aragorn's noble face beneath her hands, and then Pippin's tiny hand. She pictured tracing her finger along the curve of Gandalf's staff, as her robes were stained with their drying blood.

"_No_—"

"Loena, they will not know you are alive!" Gandalf said, furious in his impatience. "We have not the time for false heroics!"

"The drums come closer!" Boromir called, and pushed passed Loena. She could feel his hand on her shoulder as he made his way through.

"I _will _not!" She declared, gripping _G__íed_, her mind frenzied. She was sick with fear, and she could feel the measly lunch they'd spared themselves rising up dangerously in her throat. "I would rather die here, now, than wake to find you all dead."

Gandalf didn't say anything for a moment, but when he did, it was with the same frustrated anger that he'd addressed her with before. "Get in the corner." He must have pointed at someone. "Hide her."

Loena staggered forward as she heard the sound of an arrow smash into the wood of the door behind her. Boromir called back, as if in disbelief, "they have a cave troll."

A small hand found Loena's, and pulled her forward. "Come, quickly," he said. She knew it was Merry, and squeezed his hand as they moved. The ground was uneven, and Loena staggered more than she walked. Still they moved quickly.

"Here, here!" he said. "Oh _quick_, quickly, please!"

Loena obliged him, smashing her head against the rock as she pushed herself onto the ground. She grimaced against the feeling of the stone against her head. She felt a strange, oddly scented weight pressed over her, and then another, and another. She realised the smell were the bones and old, withered flesh of the dwarves who'd died in the cave around her.

"Don't move," Merry whispered. Both jumped as a smash from the door echoed around the room. Her cover must have slipped, because she felt him adjust the weight over her. "_Please_. No matter what, don't move!"

"Merry! Go stay with Frodo!" Aragorn called across the room.

"Good bye, Loena," Merry said.

"Good bye, Merry," Loena said, her voice thick.

It struck her then that her friends could still die, and that she'd still be left alone in her personal nothingness. A wraith haunting Moria until her certain death.

At least now she could yell out. At least now, as her last companion fell, she could stand, raise her sword, challenge the orc and fall beside them. There would be no uncertainty.

She kept her hand around _G__íed _as the door finally gave way, and the twanging of bow strings was swapped for the singing of sword blades. She heard her friends yell out, and heard the foreign, awful language of the Orcs as they charged through the room. Then, a sound she'd never forget, the guttural snarl of a troll as it charged through into the room. Rock smashed, and flesh hit the ground.

From the side of the room, Loena heard Frodo call for Aragorn. Her heart tugged for him. Her helplessness threatened to overwhelm her, and she kept her grip tight on her sword. The troll roared again, and it set her teeth on edge.

"Frodo!" Aragorn called.

Loena should be _out _there. They wouldn't be so outnumbered if she had been there, guarding Frodo as was her _oath_.

She'd broken her oath once, she would not do so again.

There was a great cry from the troll, and the _snick _of a spear through the air.

"Frodo?" Sam called, voice shocked, and then, with fear. "_Frodo_!"

_He's fallen, oh, he's fallen_, Loena locked her jaw to keep from sobbing. She cursed her eyes, and cursed the Ring. Even now, she wondered if reclaiming it would return her sight, if even for just a moment.

She dismissed the thought from her brain quickly, tiredly, and with practice. It did not appear again.

From all the way across the way, she heard Pippin and Merry unleash war cries, and imagined them waving their daggers as they charged through to protect their friend.

Then, in a moment of terrible lightness, the corpse lain on top of her was pushed away.

Loena lay completely still. Two strained breaths, two feet on the floor. Two Orcs.

She felt death lay his withered hand on her shoulder.

"_Well, _well, well," an orc hissed above her. Loena felt her heart in her throat. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing steady, but she knew her heart beat hard against the skin of her neck. The second one replied with a keen cackle. "This one ain't _dead_."

Loena's eyes opened with a flash, and she turned to the sound of the Orc, she unsheathed _G__íed _quickly, and took the advantage of his surprise to swing it toward him. She heard his yelp of pain as it buried into his side. She could feel that the sword had been buried closer to the hilt, and so it was with pure muscle memory alone that she wrenched it from his body, pulled it back and sliced through its neck.

Its corpse fell before her. She could hear it as it hit the stone, and feel it as its arm toppled near her feet.

She had lost the advantage on the other, and she turned to it. The _snick _of the sword through the air was near silent, but it was loud enough for her to clumsily raise her sword blocking its strike. The force of it shocked her arm, but she pushed back.

It drew back and swung again, and she met this again, with more confidence, guarding her flank without thinking.

"What's wrong with your _eyes_?" It gritted, as they struggled against each other.

Loena pushed back against it's sword as hard as she could, slammed forward into where she had guessed it's body should be. Sent off balance, she slashed her sword forward. It snapped back, skewing her strike so that she dug her blade into his arm. She withdrew it just fast enough to meet the next _skit _by her jaw line.

She gasped with the closeness. "I cannot _see_," she snapped. This time when she slammed into it, and swung her sword, her quickness was the same as she'd practiced in Rohan, and the sword dug awkwardly, but firmly, into its neck. She withdrew it, and the orc fell to the floor, grunting in its final breath before death.

Loena swayed, and felt back awkwardly for the wall behind her.

Around her, sounds of the battle were quietening. The Cave troll gave its final, devastating roar, and its great weight shook tinkering rocks from the ground as it slammed against the stone.

Loena stood herself back up. Her surprise fuzzed at the front of her mind. She stood, strangely proud, clutching her stained blade, and feeling the adrenalin of battle coursing through her fingers.

"Oh no!" Aragorn made out, winded, across the hall. Loena suddenly remembered Frodo, and her stomach went cold again. She made towards the sound, but she tripped, and staggered to the ground. Her sword clanked from her hand, and she barely found the hilt again, reaching out wildly before her. She pushed the sword into her sheath before picking herself up again.

"Here," she heard a gruff voice beside her, and felt Gimli take her hand. "Careful."

"Did you—" Loena started. She reached toward Frodo, and her voice broke. "Did you _see_ what—"

"Stabbed through the middle," Gimli said quickly, voice full.

Loena's grief paused, confused, because surely the hidden _mithril _had protected Frodo. Gandalf had called it as tough as dragon hide, and surely that was enough to protect Frodo from the spear thrust of a cave troll.

As if spurred by her thought, she heard Frodo take a heaving, huge breath.

"He's alive!" Sam exclaimed.

Gimli rushed them forward towards where Frodo lay. "_How_-?"

"I'm alright," Frodo said weakly. "I'm not hurt."

"I think there's more to this hobbit than meets the eye," Gandalf said, both relieved and bemused.

Loena imagined Frodo must have revealed his shirt, for Gimli gasped. "_Mithril_! You are full of surprises, Master Baggins." He remembered Loena, and spoke to her. "Frodo was adorned with a mail of _mithril_, and its strength hindered the troll's attack."

"Oh," Loena said.

"You sound unsurprised," Gimli said, surprised.

"Oh, well…" Loena decided there was no real reason to keep the secret. "I'm not surprised he has a mail of _mithril_. I heard it on him."

"You didn't think to let us know?" Boromir asked, who must have heard their conversation.

"No," Loena said. "I thought it…I thought Frodo had a reason for keeping it to himself." She shot her head up. Screeching and heavy footsteps thundered outside the crypt. "They come!"

"From the hall!" Legolas added, hearing as well. "Many _thousands_!"

"To the bridge of Khazad-Dúm!" Gandalf cried. All stirred around her, and Loena imagined she could hear someone lifting Frodo to his feet.

"I won't take no for an answer," Boromir warned her.

"You wish to carry me," Loena guessed. "I oblige, of course. I have no death wish."

Boromir laughed airily, and she felt him pick her up, slinging her across his chest. "We have that in common, Maiden."

Boromir ran beneath her, and she clung to him as tightly as she could. All around her orcs poured after them, their foul breath stinking the air. She felt a great sound from above, like a flock of crows descending. Boromir was breathing heavily below her, and she closed her eyes tightly, willing him the strength to get them across and out of the Mines.

Boromir slowed, and Loena worried that he had run out of energy. It was only a second later that she heard how absolute the noise of the enemy had become. The hissing and preening pressed in all around them.

The orc army had surrounded them, and they were deafening. Loena imagined that there would be many thousands of them, beady yellow eyes fixed upon the ten of them.

She had survived, blinded and cowed, in the Chamber of Mazarbul, only to die mere moments later. She wanted to cry with frustration. She could feel Boromir's grasp on her slip slightly, as though he were readying to put her down, so he could take out his sword and fight.

She felt the heat before she heard it's terrible roar. She jerked her head toward it, terrified and curious in equal measure. She felt Boromir gasp below her.

All around her, the goblins screeched with fear. The fear came off them like waves, and Loena felt as though she could taste it, like metal, on the back of her throat. Some even dropped their weapons with a _clang _as they fled. The creature, whatever it was, bore down towards them. The _snick _of its claws on the rock stung Loena's ears.

Gimli laughed as they ran, a sickened, satisfied laugh. Loena thought his triumph desperately premature.

Boromir's chest tightened beneath Loena with the furthest thing from mirth. "What is this new devilry?"

"I feel its fire from here," Loena breathed, and she felt Boromir tighten his hold on her slightly.

"A balrog. A demon of the ancient world. This foe is beyond any of you." Boromir had already begun moving when Gandalf yelled; "Run! Quickly!"

Boromir ran quickly across the ground, and he kept his breath even as he moved. Loena knew he could not last with her in his arms. The noise and air changes around Loena again, in a way that she now knew meant they'd entered a far more enclosed area.

A hallway, perhaps, for surely Boromir would not have charged into a dead-end cavern.

Loena bounced in Boromir's arms as they sped down stairs, and then suddenly seemed weightless as they stopped.

He flailed, and her stomach tipped, and her voice stuck in her throat. She felt the tickles of a strange, stale breeze rise from below her. Fear curled in her stomach as she realised that they must have run to the edge of a ledge.

She briefly saw her and Boromir tipped over, falling down and crashing through that dead, cold air below them. Boromir's weight hefted and shifted under her, and the momentum stopped, and changed, and they tipped back.

They crashed hard, and fell onto the stairs. She felt Boromir scurry up beside her, and then a second person pulled her to her feet. Legolas, she decided, realising that her saviour barely seemed short of breath.

"What—" Loena started.

"We need to go—" Boromir dismissed her, and moved to pick her up again, hand on her shoulder.

"Go, Boromir," Aragorn announced himself beside them. "You've been run down. I shall do carry her now."

"Fine," Boromir said shortly.

"_Run_!" Gandalf ordered behind them. She heard Boromir charge off, and even heard Legolas's light-foot as he moved with him.

Aragorn picked her up without another word, and she clung to him, tightening her muscles as tightly as she could. He had not run for long when they begin to slow.

She heard him curse beneath his voice.

"What?" she demanded.

"There is a gap in the staircase," Aragorn supplied. "We must jump."

"_Jump_?" Loena demanded. "How are you to do that with _me_-?"

"I know not," Aragorn admitted. "Yet." He added quickly.

"Gandalf!" Legolas called across, and Loena realised that he must have made the jump first. She heard a push from the old wizard.

A twang snatched her attention. It seemed to come from far across the cavern around them.

"Aragorn! Archers!" Loena called, just as the first arrow smashed against the rocks at their feet.

Aragorn cursed, but made no attempt to move.

"Put me down, you fool," Loena snapped. "Shoot _back_!"

She hard Legolas's bow snap down below her, and the _snick _of his arrow as it flew back.

"All will come to naught if _we're shot dead by arrows_," Loena plead, ducking her head as another two archers fired down on them.

"I see your point," Aragorn said, though he sounded worried. "Can you stand?"

Loena nodded emphatically, and he spent precious moments setting her properly on her feet. He turned, and she could hear him withdrawing his hunting bow and one of his arrows.

Loena felt her own, useless bow on her back, and withdrew it out of instinct. She paused, and swore next to her, that the hobbit had the distinct _chink _of _mithril._

"Frodo?" she turned to him.

"Yes?" He said quickly.

"Correct my aim," Loena snapped quickly. She plucked an arrow from her quiver with practiced fingers, and attached it to the string of her bow. She hefted it up and pulled it back so the feather's tickled the side of her cheek.

"Uh…" Frodo seemed unsure. "Down?"

Loena moved it slightly downward. "Like this?"

"Yes!"

Another arrow whizzed past their heads. As if in answer, Loena shot her bow.

"How was that?"

"Too low," Frodo admitted.

Without another word, Loena strung and fired another arrow in the direction she'd originally aimed. "How was that?"

"Good!" Frodo answered quickly. And then, slightly awkwardly, "You didn't hit one—"

"I don't need to," Loena strung another one and shot it to the same spot. "We need to stop them shooting at us."

Boromir had leapt across the gap with Merry and Pippin, his tired arms gripping them as he leapt.

"Keep your bow up, Loena!" Aragorn ordered, and past her. She set her jaw grimly and fired faster. "Sam!"

Loena ignored the proceedings to her right and continued to fire. She imagined she'd look an odd sight – milky eyes unfocused, looking downwards as she shot up to where the goblins looked down on them.

Gimli was the next to go, jumping himself after arguing some with Aragorn. She heard some cracks in the foundation beneath her feet.

She turned to Aragorn to tell him, but he called to her before she could. "Loena!"

She rested her bow and before she was made to try to tackle the stairs, she felt Aragorn grab her.

"I'm going to throw you across," he told her quickly. "Boromir and Legolas will catch you on the other side."

"Right," Loena nodded. Then she paused. "Wait, _what_—"

Before she could push her objections, she felt the wind rustling around her, and for a moment she was weightless. Then the world caught up to her, and she slammed into a strong, broad chest. Boromir must have nearly collapsed under the force of her, but he recovered quickly, and kept her in his arms.

Next to her, Legolas had begun shooting his bow again. Then, that same cracking ached across the gap between the bridge. More cracking, and the stones cracked against each other as they tumbled down. Loena had no idea how deep the ravine was beneath them, but she knew that Frodo and Aragorn would definitely die should they not make the jump.

More rocks, and by the sound of them, heavy ones, tumbled off the side.

It was a chance that seemed to increase with every moment. Then further off, behind them, more rocks fall.

"Steady!" she heard Aragorn call, his other words muffled between the falling debris.

"_Put me down_," Loena said quickly to Boromir. "They'll need your help."

He hesitated, but he put her down nonetheless.

Across the way, the stones groaned against each other, and Loena felt Frodo and Aragorn's panic as the great stone stairway seemed to _rock_.

"Come on!" Legolas called. "Now!"

Loena was nearly stepped on as Boromir and Legolas caught Aragorn and Frodo, who'd fallen over onto them.

There was no time to pause, no time to lick wounds or cheer for the lives saved. Aragorn picked Loena up, and the company charged down the stairs.

"Over the bridge!" Gandalf called as they ran. "Fly!"

Loena felt her heart lift as Aragorn's thundering run sent them quickly through the cavern. She felt with a surge of hope as the ground became flat once more, and then she felt him slow, and go more carefully, with the air changing strangely around them, as they must have come to cross the bridge. He ran across it, feet sure. She heard the rest of the Fellowship follow them, panting, feet knocking against the ground.

She felt Aragorn come to a stop, and realised, with a new, tender spark of hope, that they might escape. Here, so close, she could smell the outside. The grass was fresh, and the sun was newly risen.

The smells and sounds of Moria would soon be nothing but a bad dream.

But the Balrog screamed its terrible, hellish cry, and Loena's hope blew out in the breeze. It approached, the ground shook as it came upon them. A great heat descended, like the sun on the cruellest day of summer. It had come. It had followed them.

"You cannot pass!" Gandalf defied the shadow, voice full and threatening.

"Gandalf!" Frodo cried out.

The Balrog roared, but Gandalf did not call out. Loena imagined him standing, strong, virile. "I am the servant of the secret fire, wielder of the Flame of Arnor. The dark flame will not avail you! Flame of Udûn!"

The Balrog roared again, and the cavern shook as it moved. There was a _clang_, like two swords meeting, and then a smash, as if one of the two had shattered.

"Go back to the shadow!" Gandalf ordered.

There was a new sound now, a _crack_, like the end of a horse-trainer's whip.

"You _shall not pass!_" Gandalf bellowed, and Loena heard the sound of his staff striking onto the stone. She desperately needed to know what was going on, who was winning, and whether Gandalf still had a chance to come to them safely.

The balrog growled, and takes a heaving step. Loena prayed that he had stepped backwards. She heard the same cracking as when Aragorn and Frodo had been trapped on the staircase sing out through the chamber. She gasped as the cracking was absolute, and loud; the bridge collapsed.

"Gandalf?" Loena twisted, trying to hear for the wizard's deep voice, or the swish of his cloak through the air.

"Stands, still," Aragorn assured her. He was desperately relieved, and his shoulders eased up. "The Balrog has disappeared into the cavern beneath the bridge—_no_!"

Loena did not need Aragorn to tell her why he'd become aghast. She'd heard it, heard the Balrog's whip snap up through the empty air, heard Gandalf stumble and fall off the edge, heard his fingers grip at the end of the rock. She knew it _should_ be impossible, but she _did, _she swore…she heard him breathing, lungs laboured.

She heard hobbit feet race across the floor, and then stop suddenly.

"No," Boromir ordered the captured Hobbit. "No!"

"_Gandalf_!" Frodo screamed,

The Grey Wizard had been kind to her, in Minas Tirith. And she had been friendless. She remembered seeing him arrive, one evening, on a grey horse. He had winked at her as he'd passed, as if to tell her, _I'll be right back_.

Her heart had soared, and she'd laughed, and had felt the wind through her golden hair.

And then;

"Fly, you fools."

And she heard the detaching of each finger from the stone, and the way his cloak pulled against the rock as his arms gave way.

"_NO_!" Frodo cried, and the cry broke Loena. She felt the numbness grow from her lips, down her throat, into her head, her neck.

"Aragorn!"

She hadn't realised that Aragorn had been set still, staring after where his friend had fallen, until that moment. He started to go, then, turning on his feet, ducking against the new onslaught of arrows that hounded them.

Frodo cried out again, a desperate, heartbroken cry, as Boromir forced him to safety.

Loena had not the will to taste the fresh air, nor find joy in the breeze, once Aragorn had emerged with her into the sunlight.


	13. From Harm

Loena sat alone, feeling the warm tears track down her face. Moria loomed behind her, and the rest of the world whispered ahead. She felt _stunned_, beyond movement, beyond thought. She was her grey-self, barely moving, barely aware. She heard, again and again, that final moment, finger on stone, and then a breath, and then the shifting air.

She found herself holding her breath. She released it, but it brought her no comfort. The chill was complete now, about her eyes, down to her hips, her knees, her toes. She was her grey-self, her stone-self. She would not bloom again.

Because he was gone.

A small sob escaped her lips, and the emptiness pushed and pushed at her. Gandalf was gone; this wouldn't be fixed, this _couldn't _be fixed. No amount of courage or determination would turn the tides of fate. He was gone; his body hollowed, his eyes closed. She would never see him again.

Her mind prickled, her fingers ached against the stone she sat on.

_She would never see him again_.

"Legolas," she heard Aragorn call. "Get them up."

She realised he must have been talking about the hobbits, who all around her were loud in their grief. She heard Sam as he gasped through his tears, and Merry and Pippin as they held each other through it all.

Loena picked herself up carefully, wiping the tears from her cheek roughly with the back of her hand.

"Give them a moment, for pity's sake!" Boromir demanded, outraged.

"By nightfall these hills will be swarming with Orcs! We must reach the woods of Lothlórien."

Loena had never felt less desiring to move, but she pushed her legs forward nevertheless. And the going slow to feel for the change in the path before her. And her breath came hard and rough, when it came at all.

The going was tedious but she managed it by herself, kicking her foot forward gingerly to see the size of the rock ahead of her was before attempted to over it. She had come beside Sam, she could tell, hearing his caught breath as he sobbed.

"Come, Sam," she said quietly, her own voice full, and wavering. "We must go. _Please_, come."

"Frodo? Frodo!" Aragorn called, Loena turned her head in the direction that he'd called. There was no _snit _of his mithril armour near her, nor did the sound of his sobs push against those of his kin.

"He's gone and walked on ahead," Sam said miserably. "He's all out o' hope, Miss Loena."

Loena paused. She knew she should say something now to lift his spirits, but she had no energy for kindness. She had no energy for anything at all. "I am not," she said softly, and unconvincingly. "Come on, Sam. You'll need to guide me over the rocks. I fear we've lost my rope somewhere in the mines."

It was a mean tactic, but Sam complied easily. He rose and grabbed her hand, navigating her carefully over the rocks and onto the flatter ground.

"We jus' _left _him," Sam whispered to Loena, after they'd started to move again. He still had his hand in hers, and she felt him tighten it. "We jus' let him _fall_."

"This isn't our fault," Loena said flatly, and without any certainty. "We…we had no way—"

_We could have used the Ring_, Loena thought swiftly.

She swallowed and closed her eyes, dismissing the thought entirely. The Ring had one Master. The Ring was entirely evil. The Ring and its master probably watched with glee as its old enemy tumbled to his death.

It was that thought that she snapped her eyes open at, and felt anger pooling in her belly. She was tired of evil things. She was tired of the darkness in the deep places of the world, of the Orcs and the Goblins, of the great towers that marked the powers of terrible Wizards.

She had felt angry at Saruman and Sauron before, of course. She had felt her stomach heat at the thought of them, and what they had done. She had hated how her people had been treated, and had been outraged at how her countrymen had been forced to die to protect the Westfold as the Orcs had become bolder. But she'd never hated the Evil that they used, that they adored. Not like this.

She did not know if the heat would sustain itself in her belly. She did not know if she could control it. She knew that she now wanted nothing more for Sauron to perish, for Saruman to suffer, and for all dark and decrepit things in the world to be ended.

She would go to Mordor in the black of mourning, as was the custom of her people. She would see the Ring destroyed, and she would find glee in seeing Sauron diminished beyond light, and sound, and fury.

Saruman, she would not kill immediately. Saruman would suffer. Saruman would see his great collections burnt, his staff snapped, his tower toppled. Saruman would be stripped of his power, and dignity. He would be mocked, and taunted, and spat on. She wanted him to beg for it, before the end. She wanted him to _want _her sword in his throat.

She gripped _G__íed_, as if already preparing to deliver the final blow.

They walked across the open earth quickly, and funnelled into the soft cool of the trees soon thereafter. Going became difficult again as roots and trees pushed up in front of Loena's path. She was getting better at making them out, by touch and smell and sound, but she still needed Sam to pull her on the path of least resistance.

"We have come to the eaves of the Golden Wood!" Legolas announced, the first to speak after a great passing of time in silence. "Alas that it is Winter!"

Loena paused slightly, moving her head around, testing the rush of the wind against her ears. The quietness of the wood seemed different now, it was true. More ancient. Perhaps reverent.

"The trees are grey and gold, Miss," Sam whispered to Loena softly. "They look rather grand, their big boughs are as tall and as thick as a man."

They moved further on, the company treading with slightly more care than it had before. They walked for some minutes more when a sweet, sparkling sound arose before them. It was a splashing stream, Loena realised, with a sweetness to its sound that was a striking shadow of a soft voice singing.

"Here is Nimrodel!" Legolas announced, more excited than Loena had seen him since they'd taken off from Rivendell. "Of this stream the Silvan elves made many songs long ago, and still we sing them in the North, remembering the Rainbow of its falls, and the golden flowers that floated in its stream. All is dark now, and the Bridge of Nimrodel is broken down. I will bathe my feet, for it is said that the water is healing to the weary." He called for them to join him to wade across. "The water is not deep!"

With curiosity, the Fellowship obliged, turning their course and making their way to the bank. Loena found the edge of the water with Sam's help.

"Just ease down here, Loena," he offered her softly. "One step…and then the other…"

She followed his instruction carefully, and found herself standing in the river soon after. The rush of the current was a helpful indication of how she needed to walk to cross it. The touch was cool, and comforting, like a damp rag on a feverish brow. As she walked, it felt as though the aches and tiredness of travelling were washed along with the flowing water.

The company helped each other out of the water, and began to walk again, a new bounce in their step. They stopped for lunch, pushing in the little of their stores remaining, and as had been their tradition in the first days of their Fellowship, they were entertained by story and song. This time Legolas regaled them with the hymn of Nimrodel herself.

When Legolas finished, and silence once against descended, Loena could tell that all had fallen back to thinking of Gandalf. Remembering what it was that they had lost. She would have sat there forever, mourning, but Aragorn did not let them rest much longer.

They moved on through the day, and Loena felt the sun wane above them. The air was becoming cooler, though she couldn't be sure that it wasn't the foliage above them becoming denser and blocking the sun's warmth.

A twig _snapped _a ways ahead of the travelling group. Loena perked her head up in curiosity. "What was-?"

"Stay close!" Gimli interrupted her. "You Hobbits especially. They say there's a great sorceress who lives in these woods. An Elf witch of terrible power. All who look at her fall under her spell and are _never seen again_."

"The Rohirrim enter these woods all the time," Loena said. "Normally they even have all their limbs intact when they return." She didn't say, though, that the people who had wandered back to Edoras had come changed. Wide-eyed, and as innocent as children. They'd drift aimlessly for the remaining years of their life, unsatisfied, and searching. Sometimes they'd return to the woods, and disappear again.

"Are you alright, Frodo?" Sam whispered ahead of her. She heard the swish of Frodo's curls on his collar, like he'd turned to Sam and nodded.

"Poppycock and propaganda!" Gimli smarted. "For here's one dwarf she won't ensnare so easily! I have the eyes of a hawk and—"

Loena stopped, stricken, with the sounds of bows being pulled back all around her. The wood strained under the tension. And all around she heard the sounds of boots on wood, and breath, and hair. It was not the smell of humans that surrounded her, bearing down with sweat and steel, but something far softer. Earthier. As though the sound of the leaves had been distilled to an essence.

_The Elves_.

"The dwarf breathes so loud we could have shot him in the dark," a deep, melodic Elven voice sounded out drily, accented slightly. Loena wondered at it, but could not place it.

"We mean you no harm," Loena called out. "We're wearied, and have travelled a long way."

"We know your party, Loena of Rohan," the same Elf answered her, with the same easy, patterned emotionlessness. "But this is not the place to greet one another. Follow us further into these woods, so that we may converse properly."

Loena was relieved that the elf didn't plan to make good on his threat to have them all shot, but she was nonetheless concerned that they seemed to have been following them. She had heard the twig break, but other than that there had been no sound to them. Loena had never felt the need for quietness in her own battle strategy, but she could see how it might be useful for questing.

They walked with more haste now, and with the energy only granted when the end of the journey seemed near. Each of them were exhausted. It was more surprising than anything that they all remained standing. They stopped, finally, at the same Elf's order. Sam carefully led Loena around so that she stood with one hand on the trunk of an enormous tree.

The Elf began to talk with Aragorn and Legolas in Sindarin. Loena couldn't understand much, but she could make out that Legolas called the elf "Haldir", and that they were being welcomed rather warmly.

"So much for the legendary courtesy of the Elves!" Gimli growled. "Speak words we can all understand!"

There was a silence, and in clear distaste, the elf Haldir replied; "We have not had dealings with the Dwarves since the Dark Days."

Loena felt weariness crush down against her eyes, and against her tongue. She was irritated at them both; at Gimli for his rudeness, at the Elves for their clear disregard for inclusivity. She wanted to sit, in the shadow of the tree she leant against, and close her eyes and mind to the world just for a moment. She wanted a bed of soft moss, a full moon, and a few spare hours to mourn her friend.

Gimli snapped back at Haldir in his language. It's meaning was lost to Loena, but she could tell by the barbs on his voice that it had been some sort of insult. A feeling confirmed by Aragorn's chastising of Gimli.

"You bring great evil with you," Haldir said suddenly, and with a pang, Loena realised that the Elf must have looked to Frodo. To all of them, he announced; "You may go no further."

Loena let her legs collapse beneath her, and slid against the tree she'd been leaning on. She rested her head against the bark, resting into it with a sigh. She felt a movement beside her, and realised that Sam must have sat down as well. All around her, the rustling of clothes and leaves, and the slight gasps of air, told her that the rest of her companions had followed her lead.

The only exception, it seemed, was Legolas, who'd gone to a group of the Elves just beyond the group, and was speaking to them in his language so quickly and fluidly that Loena could pick out no words that she understood.

_Loena_…

She turned her head, sharply.

"Miss?" Sam asked her cautiously.

"Did you hear something, Sam?" Loena asked quickly.

"You mean, somethin' out of the ordinary?" Sam guessed. He paused. "Well, I guess a little bit o' everythin' around these parts is pretty far from ordinary."

"No, someone saying—"

_Loena_.

"There!" Loena said quickly.

She couldn't see it, but she knew Sam was drawing back. She could sense it in his tone. "I didn't hear that, no, sorry."

"That's…" Loena scrubbed at her temple, wondering if her long stint in the Mines was turning her to madness, or if this was another symptom of the Rings hold on her. "That's alright, Sam. I'm sorry I scared you."

_Loena, listen well._

She heard it, as clearly as someone speaking next to her shoulder.

_You shall not find what it is you seek here._

She felt her stomach plummet.

_But you shall find something else._

Before Loena could demand anything from the presence, a strange weight she hadn't noticed lifted from her mind, and a chill wind stole through her cloak. She shivered and pulled it tighter around her. She rested her head against the bark of the tree and ignored the voices warnings. It could have been anything; it could have been a lie. Gandalf had always told her to never believe the word of evil creatures, for the lied and truth-told in equal measure.

The presence hadn't felt evil.

Loena ignored it all, buried her face into her hair and steadied her breathing. She listened to the sound of Aragorn arguing with Haldir, and something soothed her about the way his tongue lifted and fell over the ancient language. Sindarin was the native language of Gondor. Not all spoke it, but Loena had heard it plenty during her stay there. Aragorn didn't speak it like those men, though, he spoke it like an Elf.

She began to drift, images of the great, winding city of Imladris rising up before her eyes. She remembered every great turret, and every merry river. How different, it had been, to find reception there.

"You will follow me," Haldir suddenly, announced, snapping Loena from her trance.

She pulled herself up warily, using the tree to lean on.

"The girl is blind, yes?" she heard Haldir ask someone off to the side.

"The girl _is _blind," Loena snapped back. "But the girl is not deaf."

"My apologies," Haldir said quickly, and without feeling. "Do you need to be carried, or can you walk?"

"The girl has two working legs," Loena snapped back. She swallowed and kept her jaw tight. "I can walk. I just need someone to guide me."

And so it was that Loena was sent to the front of the group to hold onto the forearm of one of the Elves that had accosted them. He was silent and swift beside her, and spoke only to warn her of when she had to mind her step. When he did, his words were simple, uncertain, and strongly accented. Loena surmised that the elves spoke little of the Common Language in the depth of their woods.

It made her pang, slightly, for the rounded, quick language of her people. Generations before her birth, they had spoken Rohirric exclusively, until a king raised in Gondor encouraged the spread of the Common Language. Most still spoke Rohirric, and in some of the more far flung areas of her country, they spoke it exclusively. But in the large towns, and in Edoras especially, more children were being raised with Westron than their forebears words.

It made Loena sad. She felt as though a great swarth of knowledge was threatening loss.

Loena pushed her tired, aching legs as hard as she could as the company made their way up a steep hill. The Elf next to her seemed to bristle with a new energy, which Loena scowled at. She could barely keep her head from lolling against her chest.

They emerged together atop the hill, and Loena felt, with a strange tearfulness, a new sun's rays pressing against her face. She knew not how long she'd been awake, but she could feel it ache into her bones nonetheless. The sun kissed her skin, rejuvenating her.

"Caras Galadhon. The heart of Elvendom on earth. Realm of the Lord Celeborn and of Galadriel, Lady of Light," Haldir announced, just ahead of her.

She heard the Hobbits murmur to each other in appreciation. She wished she knew the elf beside her well enough to ask him to describe it for her, but she didn't, and she'd feel foolish if she did and he found her request strange.

They pushed on. The grass beneath Loena's feet felt soft under the leather of her boot, and the smell of the world changed. She regretted that she did not know the flowers' names, from which wafts of sweet perfume eased along the weary travellers on the breeze. Perhaps it was some plant native to the woods of Lothlórien, and grew here only because of the magic of the Elves.

The Elf, who she'd learnt was called Rúmil, talked to her a little more as they walked through the forrest.

She responded in Sindarin as well as she could, but her speech was so garbled and grammatically incorrect that it had been easier to say it in the Common tongue and let him translate it for himself. She had learnt some from Aragorn and Legolas while they'd walked together, and some again from Arwen whilst she'd been in Imladris. Not enough, it seemed, to keep her from embarrassing herself.

"Shall we see the Lady Galadriel?" she asked him, after spending a rough five minutes trying to conjugate "see" in her head, before giving up.

Rúmil nodded. "Yes." He paused, and Loena wondered if he had more to say. "She…" he trailed off again, and she felt as though he was desperately struggling for words to respond to her with.

"_Hannon Le_," Loena said, saving him. She stumbled a little over the pronounciation of 'le', and sounded very Rohirric to her own ears.

The Elf seemed to enjoy it though, and laughed. "_Gi nathlam_, _sel Rochand_."

"Where do we walk now?" Loena asked, feeling heat rise up her neck to her cheeks, eager to move the conversation on from her terrible Sindarin.

"We walk through the first arches of Caras Galadhon," Haldir narrated suddenly, his voice calling from up ahead. She wondered if Haldir had thought to come and save his brother from accessing any more of his Sindarin. "I lead us to meet with the great Lady atop a _talan_." Ahead of them a horn sounded, and then another further along answered it. "They are informing the Lady and Lord of our coming. We will begin walking the stairs very soon."

The stairs in Lothlórien were far easier for Loena to navigate than the ones in Moria. Here each were set at the same height as the one before. Once she'd figured into a rhythm, with a hand tracing the tree the stairs circled, she could walk by herself. She bid Rúmil farewell, and he hurried ahead of her, catching up to Haldir and Legolas. The grace of the Elves had allowed them to alight the stairs quickly and easily.

It was a far longer walk than Loena had realised, and she had to take two breaks before she broke through, stopping unsteadily as the stairs seemed to end, and the material beneath her feet had changed.

"Loena, just here," a voice pierced through her personalised darkness. Legolas came to lead her away from the top of the stairs, placing her hand onto his arm. Soon after her, she heard the sounds of Aragorn and Boromir. Then the hobbits, breathing hard, stacked up one after the other. Finally Gimli emerged at the end, who'd suffered the stairs worst of them all.

"The Lord and Lady are coming out now," Legolas said to her in his quick, soft voice.

"Greetings, to those who journeyed from Imladris," a new, male voice called out in the Common tongue. It would have been Celeborn. Each of the members of the Fellowship were greeted in turn, coming eventually to; "Welcome some of Thranduil! Too seldom do my kindred journey from the North. And welcome to the daughter of Rohan, too oft have we neighbours neglected the courtesy of meeting the other."

He was pleasant, and kind, but he turned grave quickly after they had all been named. "The enemy knows you have entered here. What hope you had in secrecy is now gone. Nine there are here, yet ten set off from Imladris. Where is Gandalf? For I much desire to speak with him. I can no longer see him from afar."

Loena grimaced at the name of their lost companion, and ducked her head. His loss pushed at her chest.

Galadriel spoke, her voice rich, and strong. "Gandalf the Grey did not pass the borders of this land. He has fallen into _shadow_."

All around them, the Elves gathered called out in their grief. It rose like a great tide, and Loena felt her soul cry out to join them. It felt as though they were each raising their voices for a great chorus.

"These are evil tidings," Celeborn said, emotion colouring his voice. "The most evil that have been spoken here in long years full of grievous deeds."

"He was taken by shadow and flame," Legolas, beside her, said bitterly. "A balrog of Morgoth. For we went needlessly into the net of Moria."

"Needless were none of the deeds of Gandalf in life," Galadriel chastised him gently. "We do not yet know his full purpose." She paused, and turned to Gimli. "Do not let the emptiness of Kazad-dúm fill your heart, Gimli son of Gloin. For the world has grown full of peril, and in all lands love is now mingled with grief."

Loena felt the same pressure on her head that she'd sensed as they walked through Lothlórien.

_You stand at a crosswords, daughter of Leofwine. _

She recognised the voice now, as that of Galadriel's. It filled her head, her mind. The pressure wasn't unpleasant, but she feared it. Could the lady read her thoughts?

_Your fate has not yet been decided. And that fate is tied to the future of the Eorlingas_.

Loena remembered, suddenly, and feeling foolish, that it had been Galadriel who had told Gandalf of the prophetic future her line claimed. She remembered the conversation with some surprise, and detachment. It felt like a life belonging to someone else.

She felt as though she no longer desired to know what the prophecy had said. She had not the energy to agonize over the words, and her purpose. She wanted to go home, to the arms of her mother, and ride her horse across the plains of her home. She wanted to see Edoras, golden in the sun, one last time before the unstoppable evil of Orthanc tore her kinsman from the ground like weeds from a garden.

She wanted to be held up. She was tired of standing alone.

She returned to the conversation as Celeborn said; "without Gandalf, hope is lost."

Loena tightened her jaw, agreeing.

"The quest stands upon the edge of a knife," Galadriel told them all. "Stray but a little, and it will fail to the ruin of all."

Loena had been given new clothes when those gifted from Elrond, filthy from months of travel, were sent off to wash. The transition from travel had been one desperately needed. She'd scrubbed the grime from her body as best as she could in the warm pools of spring water gathered at the base of some of the broad, grand trees.

She dismissed the Elf who had brought her new clothes to her and set to work. She spent rather more time than necessary figuring out how the buttons and folds worked with her hands. The fabric was soft beneath her fingers, and she enjoyed the challenge. The Elven material was cool against her cleaned skin, and she felt refreshed. Almost human.

The Elves had set them up a space to rest on the ground. They collected soft couches and pillows and had lain them out with sweet-smelling blankets. The site was space enough for a warm fire to stave off the chill of the fall of night. Loena was relieved that they hadn't been given one of the _talan_'s, for she was certain that she'd awake in the morning, and without thinking to check with her hands, step innocently into empty air.

When Loena had returned to the camp with the help of one of the passing Elves, Aragorn called to her.

"Hello, Aragorn," she said.

"Walk with me, Loena," he said.

Loena rubbed a hand across her aching eyes. "I would, my friend, but I would also sleep."

"This will not take long," he promised, and she felt him come up beside her, and take her arm in his, like they were a lord and lady walking into court. "I have some things I wish to speak with you about."

Loena knew refusing would make her seem petulant, and irritable, but she was close to not caring. To make up for it, she was obstinately silent as they walked, making no effort to start a conversation, and pulled her lips into a surly grimace.

"There is something that has been unclear to me for a long while, Loena," Aragorn said, finally, after a while of walking. They stopped, and he directed her to sit on the root of a large tree. He sat beside her. "Why did you volunteer for the quest?"

Loena stopped in surprise. She hadn't thought much about her decision after making it. "Gandalf brought me to Imladris to fulfil the role of my ancestor. You know this, Aragorn."

"I know that he told you to sit upon the council as a representative of your line and kin, yes," Aragorn allowed her. "But he could not have intended for you to join the company. He did not know of its existence before Frodo volunteered himself."

"He knew the Ring had to be destroyed," Loena argued.

"And the original thinking was that only one person would take it to the fires of Mount Doom," Aragorn countered. "That was changed with Frodo." Loena heard the pause, and wondered if he were watching her over, checking for any signs of tension. "I do not see that he had intended _you _to bear the Ring. Merely that you would have some role to play as we structured our opposition against the two towers."

"Gandalf was not resistant when I volunteered my sword," Loena argued, though she was curious what Gandalf had had in mind for her before the Fellowship had formed. "None were. If I were not meant to be on this quest, he or Elrond would have raised some objection."

"Perhaps," Aragorn allowed. "But that does still not explain _why _you decided to volunteer your sword to begin with." He paused. "There was no pressure from Gandalf, and with myself and Boromir, the race of Men had been represented already."

"I…" Loena had been about to say that she had volunteered to represent Rohan, but the words died at her lips as she realised that they were untrue. "I was at the Council to fight for my people. And the quest was an opportunity to do that. With the Ring destroyed, Orthanc will fall, and Rohan will be thrust from the darkness that has enveloped it."

"There were nine of us gone already," Aragorn pressed, and Loena, beginning to become irritated, wondered what point he wanted her to arrive at. "Nine or ten in a mission of discretion is not much different."

Loena paused, because he was touching on something that had tortured her in the days leading up to leaving Imladris.

She _wasn't _of them. She had none of their stature, nor importance. She wasn't even the blood of her King. If she'd been the princess of Rohan, then she might have felt differently, but…she _wasn't_. Boromir was heir to the Stewardship, and was a captain of Gondor. Aragorn was the blood of Isildur. Legolas was the son of the Elven lord of Mirkwood, Gimli was nephew to a great lord of Dwarvendom, Gandalf was the Grey Wizard, with a staff of magic. What was she? She had some command and authority as the ensign within the eored, that was true, and she had a relationship with Éomer and Éowyn. She was the blood of an ancient line, that was true as well, a line with prophetic ambitions.

But that wasn't _enough_. Baldor's line had had the aspiration to return to its grandeur for generations, and it hadn't. There was nothing innately _special_ about them, excepting their opportunity by birthright.

She was a woman, and her gender was rarely the fighting type. She wasn't as strong a fighter as Boromir and Aragorn. She couldn't shoot an arrow like Legolas could, and axes were too heavy for her to swing. She didn't have the hardiness and steadfastness of the Hobbits.

Her hopelessness deepened.

And since her blindness, she'd been more of a hindrance than a help. She'd slain two orc, that was true, but the others had slain many.

In her heart, she knew the answer. She knew why she was hopeless now, and why she'd been adrift since her sight had been stolen from her.

"I desired the Ring," Loena said finally, heavily. "I justified it to myself by pretending that Gandalf had always intended on me accompanying the Quest, but I had no hope in destroying it."

Aragorn was quiet for a long while beside her. "I desired it too, when I first saw it."

Loena looked up in surprise. She had expected Aragorn to react in anger, to command her to return to the halls of Edoras. "Not as I, my friend."

"It is true that your desire overwhelmed your better judgment," Aragorn conceded. "But the Ring is more powerful than we could ever properly understand, Loena. Gandalf was right; Saruman had created the chink in your armour, and the grief of the sliding darkness of your country cracked it open." Aragorn paused, and when he spoke again, there was more emotion in his voice. "And in the end, you upheld your oath, and you rejected the Ring."

Loena was quiet, mulling over his words. Then finally, she said; "Galadriel has told me that I face a crossroads here." She paused. "I do not think we should be delicate when it comes to me, anymore Aragorn. It is clear that I am no longer any use on this quest. I cannot even walk without assistance, let alone raise a sword against the terrors of Mordor."

"We still have hope in the healing medicine of the Elves," Aragorn reminded her.

Loena remembered the words spoken to her as she'd walked through the woods. _You shall not find what it is you seek here. _She spoke them allowed to Aragorn, and explained the nature of how she'd heard them.

Aragorn considered them for a moment, tasting them properly. Finally, he said; "I have come to Lothlórien before, and many other Elven settlements apart from that. I know that the language the Elves use is purposefully vague, and even misleading. Galadriel – for it was Galadriel who spoke with you – could have meant many things."

"But it is a _possibility_," Loena countered, feeling miserable, properly, now. She hadn't expected Aragorn to fight against the idea of her returning to Rohan, and had no idea he had so much hope in her seeing again. She had wanted a swift conversation about it, one to be held in the coming days. She would say her farewells to her friends and journey the short distance to Edoras. "One we must contend with."

Aragorn paused. "No oaths bound you to go further than you will," he said finally. "I cannot force you to stay, and I do not mean to."

"And _besides _my blindness," Loena added, suddenly. "You were right. There is no essentiality to my being here. And my motives for joining were impure to begin with."

"An extra sword is always welcome," Aragorn said softly. And then, with more feeling; "I worry that you don't see your contribution clearly, and I never meant to intend that you have been a mere straggler. I merely questioned your motives for joining because I worried that you, _yourself_, had no clarity on the matter." He paused, and then, with more emotion, "Please believe that I know that you are kind, Loena, and fearless, and determined."

"What have I _accomplished_, thus far?" Loena demanded. "What historical evidence do you have that I ought to stay? That I _am _as you so profess?"

"You tracked with Legolas as we walked through the woods from Imladris," Aragorn said readily. "You taught the hobbits how to hold their swords. You spoke well with each of us, and eased some of our pain."

"Legolas could have scouted by _himself_—"

"But he _didn't_—"

"_Boromir _taught the hobbits more than I did, all I really did was help them along—"

"That is unfair on yourself, Loena, you taught them many essential things—"

"And you could have spoken to any one of the company, any of them would have taken the time—"

"_Enough_," Aragorn stopped her, his voice now noble, now grave.

But Loena was not finished. "And _all _of that is overbalanced out by how much hurt I have cost the Fellowship; first by my desire for the Ring, and then for all the assistance I required thereafter."

"You have not convinced me," Aragorn told her. "And I am disappointed that this is all it has taken to convince yourself. A person's influence should not be measured in single, grand accomplishments. More than this, I know it in my heart. There is a way that this is all playing out that _matters _in the end. I know it." He paused, before saying; "I would apologise if I thought that my line of questioning brought about this response, but I do not believe that to be true." Another pause, before, "you must hold yourself to a higher standard, Loena."

"Why did you seek to talk to me, if you were to be unsatisfied with my answer!" Loena exploded, frustrated.

Aragorn had become quiet again, and sad. "Because I had noticed you drifting, and I wanted to see if I could pull you back to us." He sighed. "I wish Gandalf were here. He always understood how people worked and reacted better than I."

Loena swallowed, and she felt the thickness of her grief against her throat. "As do I."


	14. The Curse Unbroken

Loena spent the first few days in Lothlórien resting her wearied limbs. Though, she couldn't be sure that they were properly days, and that the stretches of resting were night. Time seemed to phase in and out around her, and fade in and out like the sun on a cloudy day.

The moments she didn't spending sleeping were spent meditating on her conversation with Aragorn. And every remembered word, and pause, and break, felt shrouded in tragedy; in the purposeless of her. For what was she, really, but an attendant to the destruction of the ring? She had no agency here, no sway. The world would have kept its pace without her hand or with it. And most damningly, perhaps the most frightening and nullifying of all, was that the wild lands of her kin would not be saved by her hand, but by the hands of her more important, stronger friends.

When the choir in her head reached is cacophony, she'd take to walking. Bare feet would trace the soft grass, and she'd step in time with the song that glanced out around her. For in the lands of elves, so it came to be seen, a song was always being sung. Loena began to understand it as their language - communication beyond the knowledge or insight of a human. And so it was, with the exercise and their music, her anguish began to clear, and her breathing came easy once more.

Her sight, or lack thereof, kept her from wandering too far. She only trailed so much as that she could still hear the conversation of her companions so that she could find her way back if lost. She had come to memorise the voices clearly - Legolas, so high and fine, and Gimli, deep as the mountain roots. And then there were the hobbits, who spoke with a half-lilt, as though they were soon to break out into a song to rival the Lothlórien elves.

One of these days, the grass had been too soft, and her mind too full. Before she had had time to notice, Loena wandered too far.

It was no moment of fear, not really. She could turn on her foot and march back the way she'd come. As she considered her predicament, she figured also that if she stayed where she was for long enough, some passing elf would be able to guide her back to their camp.

A prickle, like hardened twine surprising, niggled down her neck. She felt the strangeness of it bloom into her cheeks, rise up into her head.

And there, barely more than a whisper, she heard it. The scrape of a robe upon the grass, hair upon the robe, breath exhaled.

"Loena," Galadriel's grand voice announced itself behind her. And Loena wasn't afraid.

Loena turned around, facing the sound of Galadriel's voice. She tried to picture the elven lady there as she stood, but with no memory to fixate on, all she could imagine was a tall, slight woman, arranged in an aura of beauty and power, with a light emanating from her core. Without forgetting herself, she quickly bowed. "My lady." She stood back up, uncertain.

"You shall come with me," Galadriel said, and though it might have seemed it, there was no urgency to her words, no pressure. For Loena, locked in a mind of displeasure and self-pity, the soft words seemed near kind.

Loena bowed her head. "Of course, my lady." She hesitated. "How am I to make sure I do not trip?"

"You have been wandering these fields for some days now," Galadriel said. "And you have not fallen yet. Come, Maiden, follow my voice. Nothing ill shall befall you as I stand your guard."

Loena walked forward, steadying herself with a breath and placing each foot confidently after the other. A piece of ground rose up before her, and she staggered against the knee that was shocked by it, but she did not fall. Still she followed towards Galadriel.

Galadriel began to sing, and each step Loena took began to become easier than the last. It felt as though she were following in a dream, lost from her agency, but all the better for it.

Loena needed no warning when the first step arose under foot. She stepped upon it like she had walked it in a thousand lifetimes. She walked up them as if she could see them. She felt the ease of her walking as well as she felt the tree she walked around beneath her palm, hand trailing the bark as she strode. Still Galadriel walked ahead of her, singing in her high, pure voice.

Even as she walked, exerting her muscles in a way that they hadn't been for many-a-week, Loena felt her breathing as regular as if in sleep, and her heartbeat calm; slow.

Soon, her and the singing elf came atop a talan.

Galadriel stopped, and the absence of her song tugged pitifully at Loena's heart. All it once it seemed as if in waking. An off moment of breeze swept through the trees, and in that moment, slapped Loena's face as if it were a mighty gale. She stood uncertainly, turning around, realising only now how far she'd come, and how far she'd have to go if she was to find her way back.

"Come sit by me," Galadriel said. "What we now discuss was always intended to be spoken of by both Gandalf and myself. I alone am I poor substitute, but a knowledgeable one, nonetheless."

Loena, now more hesitant with the ending of Galadriel's song, found her way awkwardly to one of the chairs, holding her hands out in front of her to feel for the wood. She pulled herself into it smoothly after that.

"How do you fare, Shieldmaiden?" Galadriel asked her.

Loena knew it would be impossible to lie to Galadriel, who, even now, was a presence around her. Like a heaviness, like a thunderstorm, on the air. "I question my importance." She said simply.

"I have read the same prophecy that Gandalf told to you," Galadriel told her. "I know the gravity of it, and the gravity upon you. Hardened, I could understand. Troubled, more so. But I cannot comprehend unimportant."

Loena was ready with all the arguments she'd had with Aragorn before now, ready to counteract Galadriel with the same numbered list. But she hesitated, and with feeling, said; "I cannot fight. I have lost my purpose."

"That is untrue," Galadriel said.

Loena frowned. "Fighting is my purpose." She paused. "Well, perhaps not in the grand scheme of the prophecy, but in order to achieve that—"

"I do not deny that," Galadriel assured her. "I merely deny that you cannot fight."

Loena laughed, without humour. "My lady, forgive me, but people oft need to see their opponents when they stick them."

"Yes, the often do," Galadriel agreed. "Though they do not always." She paused, before saying; "Loena, the elves cannot restore your sight. It is a magic from the evil of Mordor, and though we are strong here, we have not the strength we once did."

And it was like time itself stood still, collected itself, and started again. Loena felt the hopelessness sink deep into her stomach, resting just atop her naval. There she held it, tight, painful, hers.

"However," Galadriel said, sensing Loena's cold mood. "I believe it can be restored. It is a punishment for rejecting the allure of Sauron's power, and it will lift when it is punishment no more."

Punishment no more? "It will always be a curse," Loena spat.

"As long as that is true," Galadrield said, and Loena imagined how her head might incline, how her hand might gesture. She pictured how her lips would curl into a half smile. "The curse shall remain."

"A familiar voice sounded from the top of the stairs, introducing his presence in Sindarin. Loena placed it a moment later – it was Haldir, the elf who had guided them through the great forest.

"Haldir," Galadriel said, and then, in the Common tongue; "Come in. I have a request to be made of you."

Loena was curious, and slightly annoyed that Galadriel had organised a meeting between herself and the captain of her guard during time she'd allotted for Loena.

"Greetings, Loena," Haldir said, he must have just seen her.

"Hello," Loena said back, rather lamely.

"I have a solution to both problems presented by you two," Galadriel said as she started to explain. Haldir had pulled up to a stop beside the two of them, still standing. "Haldir, for the gaps in the guard that protect this realm, I present this Shieldmaiden of Rohan. She has been trained by sword and bow, and was one of those who set off from Imladris. She will work well."

Haldir was silent for an awkward moment. Then, "As you wish, my Lady."

"This is ridiculous," Loena said, heart beating faster, some with anger, some with anxiety. "I'm blind, my Lady. I cannot fight!"

"Then Haldir shall train you," Galadriel said, and her tone was high and tight.

Loena tightened her jaw, and settled back. Heat rose from her neck to her cheeks, and she felt all other indignations die at her lips. She sunk into her chair, sullen, ashamed that she'd spoken as such to one of the most powerful beings in Middle Earth.

"We shall start today," Haldir said.

Loena had another retort, but she bit her tongue. He probably wanted to do this about as much as she did, but he would not question the order of his Lady.

"Excellent," Galadriel said. "Then we are finished here. You may both go."

"But, my Lady," Loena spluttered. "I thought we were to speak of the prophecy of Baldor?"

"I thought as much as well," Galadriel said thoughtfully. "I had many thoughts on what the ancient words may mean. But after meeting you, and speaking of these things with you, I know them all to be now wrong. Farewell, Loena."

Haldir had been throwing rocks and logs for Loena to duck for hours. At the beginning, it had been nearly easy. He'd told her when he was throwing, and the throws were slow and careful. She had been proud of how quickly she'd come by just listening for the whistle of the missile through the air.

Haldir had ramped up the training quickly from there.

"Ahh!" Loena yelled out as a rock hit the side of her arm. She gritted her teeth in her frustration. That was the third in a row.

She had no time to lick her wounds, for the near soundless missile was rocketing in the air before her. Loena had barely a moment to try to figure out the speed and the exact location of it before spinning out of the way. This time it just brushed by her shoulder.

"Good!" Haldir called out encouragement to her. Despite Loena getting the strong sense that he was disquieted by his project, Haldir had never been anything but polite toward her. Cold, perhaps, and distant in the way that most elves were. But he hadn't taken out his frustrations for what felt like, for both of them, a useless endeavour, on Loena.

Another whistled through the air, and Loena didn't have the time to leap out of the way. This one struck her square on the ribs.

She hissed in breath against the pain.

Across the field, Haldir called, "These are not nearly the speed of arrows, Loena."

Loena wondered if the next step up in their training would be him shooting at her. At least then she'd hear the twang of the bow before she was forced to jump from position.

Another one caught her on her left shoulder, and then another one skimmed her right hip. She jerked around to avoid them as they neared her, but she was always a fraction of a moment too slow.

"Can we take a break?" Loena called weakly, exerted. "Drink some water?"

A shrill, keen whoosh through the air ahead of her, and she spilled herself back out of the way. The projectile slammed into the ground behind her.

"We may break now," Haldir said, sounding satisfied.

The break was short, and the two got back into training quickly. As they went on, and as the day warmed, and then waned, Loena felt herself become practiced. Her mind was exhausted, but she was excited. Haldir began to drift around her, and she listened for his footsteps, as well as the whistling of the rocks. It was an easy thing to adapt to dodge from behind. She felt almost as good at it as coming from the front.

For the first time, in a long time, Loena felt as if she had a good grip of the layout of the land around her.

Her muscles ached as she went to sleep that night, and she rested with a smile on her lips. When she awoke, her arms and legs ached like she'd run a thousand miles. She felt more alive than she had in weeks.

That next day, Haldir came for her early in the morning. She'd scarfed down the bread and berry breakfast the elves had supplied to the Fellowship as quickly as she could.

They copied the same drills as the day before, and Loena, after falling back into the rhythm, found her feet and body move nearly instinctively to the beats. She had become, in the end, eager to move, eager to sense the air around her. As her muscles contracted and released, she felt more like her old self again.

Haldir and her stopped for lunch, Loena's stomach gurgling for sustenance.

She had become curious about her elven companion, who seemed content to keep their conversations rather focused on how her drills were going.

"How do you fare, Haldir?" She asked him, accepting the bread he pushed into her hands.

"Well, thank you, my Lady," he said. "The call of the sea is not so strong on me today. Training you has been a welcome distraction."

"That surprises me," Loena admitted.

"That the call of the sea is not so strong?" Haldir asked.

"Well, I am not quite sure what that is," Loena admitted. "I was, however, more referring to our training being welcome. Do you not have borders to patrol?"

"I do," Haldir said. "But the Lady Galadriel commanded it, and so it is. There is a sense and structure to her decrees. If she believes it good that you are to be trained, and are to help us protect Lothlórien, then I trust that it is good also."

Loena chewed over her lunch, and considered his words. His faith in his lady was resolute, and, after so many years, probably came from a wealth of experience. "Tell me of the sea, now, Haldir."

"Did your Mirkwood companion not mention it along your travels?" he asked her, seeming surprised.

Legolas, she realised. "Ah, no. Well, he may have, but I remember not."

"All Elves feel the call of the sea," Haldir explained to her. "We long to return home, across the breaking waves, to the Grey Havens, where we may rest forevermore. The Elves that leave Middle Earth now are those who can no longer resist the call. Soon I will go, with the rest of my kin, and never see the woods of Lothlórien again."

"I do not know why," Loena said, sighing. "But the thought of it…of the elves departing this realm, it makes me feel lonely. Sad."

"Soon the world will be the domain of men, or of orcs," Haldir said, voice tightening with anger on the latter. "There is no room for the elves. We walk about living in the dreams of past ages. Nothing has changed, and our people have become aimless. The elves evolved once, first, when they rode across the waves and alighted at our shores. It is time my kin evolved once more."

Loena was silent for a moment, the last of her lunch consumed. "Will any elves remain?"

"Some may," Haldir admitted. "Some have ties to Arda that are too strong to be uprooted. They will fade, though. There will be no great Elven kingdoms after this age turns into the next."

Rivendell and Lothlórien were already faded, and Loena presumed it were the same for the other houses of the elves across the continent. She wished suddenly that she had seen them in the height of their splendour.

"Let us continue," Haldir said.

He spent the rest of the day slowly moving through the paces with sticks, as if he were holding a sword. It was hard, but she picked it up far more quickly than the projectiles. At the beginning, Haldir just made her catch the stick as it came towards her. She'd grab at the air as much as she'd grab at the stick, and had to narrow down her precision to near perfection.

Snick, her left, she pushed out with her palm, and the stick grazed her fingers.

"Think of where they might aim," Haldir suggested, pulling back, and the stick swung around again. "And move there first."

It worked a little better after that, as Loena started to lean into her swordplay instincts more, and give into the rush. The swordplay she'd learnt off in a wide, sun-sprayed land was a series of instant, informed decisions sustained for a long time. This was no different, she was just playing off far less information.

Haldir and Loena would meet up and train every day for the next week. As her confidence grew, she became far more determined. She hadn't thought it was possible to get to the stage she was at now, and she wanted to push it as far as it could go.

As the days passed, and sticks changed to swords, Loena started to push for longer and longer training sessions. Bemused, Haldir often complied with her, though he'd force her to stop when it looked as though she were on the brink of exhaustion.

Despite the constant physical exertion, she was feeling more energised than she had since Rivendell. Despite, at her core, still having little understanding of her proper purpose, she felt now that she was working her way towards figuring it out.

Loena woke one morning, as she had for the past fortnight, and pulled herself up and out of her bedclothes. The fellowship still slept in the same, secluded spot, on soft, mossy grass. It rarely rained under the canopy of Lothlórien, but when it did it was light, and refreshing. After so many days and nights spent out under the stars, Loena was barely bothered by a trickle of rain.

This morning was such a moment, where she felt the rain touch the back of her neck, oh-so-softly, as she braided her hair back. Her hair had become unruly and long since they'd set out, and since her training with Haldir had kicked into high gear, she'd taken to styling it in the same way she had in Rivendell. She was getting better at feeling with her hands where the braid sat on the back of her head, and she was sure that she was getting it close to centre.

"Good morning, Miss Loena," a voice called to her.

"Good morning, Pippin," she answered merrily, humming a little to herself as she put the finishing touches to the ends of her braids.

"I was…I was just wondering," Pippin said, and he become louder as he approached. Loena tested herself, listening for his shirt on his skin, his hair on his collar, listened to how he swallowed, and how his hands rubbed against the other, like he was wringing them. She pictured him, just to her left, nervous, head slightly bowed. "Do you know when we might be leaving?"

She hesitated. The thought of leaving had been preying on her mind, also. She worried that her work with Haldir would be stopped, but mostly she worried for the conversation she'd had with Aragorn. She still had the crossroads before her, and despite the fact that Haldir and his training was helping turn her away from fleeing to Rohan and licking her wounds, she was still far from certain that her future lay with the Fellowship.

"I don't," she said finally. "I apologise. Have you spoken with Aragorn?"

"No," Pippin sighed, and she heard the drag of his curls on his collar, and realised that he must have shaken his head. "I haven't seen him yet, today. I think he goes wandering through the woods. Legolas and Gimli have both gone off, exploring."

Loena blinked. "Together?"

"Oh, they're fast friends now," Pippin said dismissively. "Gimli is very fond of Galadriel." He paused. "You haven't noticed?"

Loena felt guilty, then, and realised how obsessed she'd been with her training. She hadn't thought she'd been isolating herself from her friends, but looking back at these past weeks, she'd barely spared a time for a conversation with any of them. "No, I suppose I haven't."

"Oh," Pippin said. "Well, if you do see Strider before I do, do you mind asking him?"

"Of course," Loena agreed readily. Then, cautiously, "How have you found Lothlórien?"

"Not bad," Pippin said truthfully. "There aren't as many people to speak to here, as there were in Rivendell, but the earth is kinder, somehow. Nicer, sort of. I don't know, really, it's hard to explain."

Loena was distracted as she walked to the training field that morning, and only realised she'd been close to slamming into someone at the last moment. She cursed herself, and pushed her hair back nervously.

"Loena," Haldir said, and his voice was a comforting familiarity ahead of her. "I had come to find you. There has been a development along the border. Galadriel and Celeborn have commanded it be addressed."

"Ah," Loena said, twinging with disappointment. She was sure that there were other elves who could train her as Haldir had, but she had gotten use to his manner. More than that, if the leaving of the Fellowship had become a pressing issue, then there may not be time to find a replacement for her tutor.

"So you will accompany us," Haldir said, emotionless. "Your training shall continue."

Loena gaped. "Am I ready for an ordeal such as that?"

Haldir paused. "It is ordered by the Lady."

No, then¸ Loena surmised, grim.

She hesitated, before asking, "how long will such a mission take us?"

"There is no certainty," Haldir admitted. "Although they generally will take us far beyond the borders of Caras Galadhon as we drive them far from us, pursuing them beneath the grey boughs. So, perhaps a couple of weeks."

A couple of weeks! There was no doubt that the Fellowship would depart by then. She could not, in good conscience, request that they wait for her return before leaving. Sauron and Saruman would not pause their warmongering while Loena played Elf in the woods.

"We will leave by the breaking of dawn tomorrow morning," Haldir continued. Loena wondered if he could sense the thoughts she was whirring through. "As such, I think it would be best if we decide against continuing with your training today. Rest, Loena. You will have opportunity plenty in the days ahead to refine your skill."

"Very well," Loena said, swallowing. "I will await you at sunbreak in the morn."

She returned to the camp slowly, walking with increasing hesitation. She knew not how the remaining Fellowship spent their days, but she hoped Aragorn would have remained for the day. She dearly desired to talk with him. When she returned within earshot, she could make out perhaps four distinct voices. One was Pippin, another was Merry, the third was Sam, and then the fourth was Frodo's.

She stopped, frustrated. Despite how far she'd come, it was moments like these that kept her from ever becoming entirely hopeful that she could fight alongside her Fellowship once more. How was she to find Aragorn, amongst the tall, ever forest of Lothlórien? It was almost certain that he was up on a talan somewhere, reading an elvish text, or reconnecting with a friend.

"Loena!" a low voice called across the glade.

Or, perhaps, he'd been looking for her as well.

She turned towards him. "Aragorn, greetings."

"I have come back from counsel with Celeborn," he told her, now by her side. "We have discussed when to move on. They will give us oars and boats to navigate the Anduín. We leave in just a few days."

There was no chance, then, that she'd back from the patrol with Haldir in time to leave with the Fellowship.

Aragorn sensed her hesitation. "Have you made your decision, yet?"

Loena paused. She knew she had no more time, and she knew that spending so much time agonizing over her future was frustrating for her companions. "I am to patrol the woods of Lothlórien with Haldir and his brothers," she said instead. "There have been orcs seen on the border." She paused. "I am sorry."

Aragorn understood her meaning instantly. "Ah, well that is a great honour." He sighed. "I shall miss you, though, my friend."

"When I return to Lothlórien with Haldir, I know that my path will become obvious to me," Loena said, honestly. "I feel as though all this is building to something, to some key turn in my path. But I am not to leave with you." The realisation stuck a blow, and she swallowed hard. "This is more painful than I thought."

"Do not despair," Aragorn said. "For I do not. I know we will meet again. This is simply the first full bloom of flowers of a long springtime." He hesitated. "I will say this, Loena. If I have learnt one thing over my years crossing Arda, is that you rarely walk your path by waiting for it. You must set out, find it for yourself."

Loena pictured herself returning to Lothlórien, and waiting beneath the trees for her life to begin. She pictured waiting, growing grey and old, as the elves emptied out around her, and the grass grew long and wild. She pictured returning to Rohan, a straggler, lost and blind, as her country slipped into darkness around her.

Aragorn was right. She needed not purpose, she needed will.

"If I am to find you," Loena said softly. "If that is within my ability, then I will know that my fate is tied with yours. I will not resist it any longer."

"Then go in good faith," Aragorn said. "And with our strength." She felt his hands on her shoulders, and she bowed her head, so that he could press a kiss to her forehead.

She farewelled all the others softly, and gently. Sam choked back tears as she hugged him farewell, and Gimli's voice was rather rougher than usual as he gave her his blessings. Boromir clutched at her hand, his callouses were familiar beneath her fingers. Legolas blessed her in the language of his people. Merry and Pippin farewelled her with a sweet, short song, that they said they sung in the Shire for the bride at the end of a wedding. Sam found that rather funny, for some reason, and laughed his way out of his dour mood.

Loena spoke to Frodo last. She bent down on one knee for him, and cupped his hands in hers. "I apologise to you, my friend. I should have gone with you. I'm sorry that I find that I cannot."

"Fear not," he said softly. She wondered if he were smiling, that slow, sad smile that curved his lips. "I hold your oath fulfilled."

They spoke late into the night, reminiscing on their travels. When they arrived at the trials of Moria, each fell silent, remembering Gandalf in their own way.

As each drifted to sleep, voices became quieter, and quieter. Loena drifted off to sleep to the sound of Aragorn's soft, dry chuckle.

She'd awake in the morning, before all others. In a new cloak, with an elvish dagger on her hip, and Gíed strapped across her back, she met Haldir. He would let her be quiet as he led her from the Elven grove, the mist kissing her skin.

* * *

_I am SO SO sorry I took so long to update. There really is no excuse (I've had this chapter written since May) except that:_  
_1\. I started doing Law School and god damn that shit is a Lot of Work_  
_2\. My laptop died and I lost all my work :((( (I managed to get it back a pretty long time ago so it doesn't realllyyyy hold up but still)_  
_3\. The footy season started and, well, Collingwood weren't going to just carry themselves to the Preliminary final only to lose to a team that scored the lowest in a Grand Final since the 1920s (grrr!)_

_So sorry again, I will try to finish the fellowship in the next week or so, and then hammer the Two Towers and Return over Summer (Dec-Feb for you Northern Hemisphere types)._

_If you're reading this I love you! Lol_


	15. The Sightless, Seen

Rúmil and Orophin, Haldir's bothers, awaited them by the outskirts of Caras Galadhon. Loena had found the way by listening for Haldir's near soundless footsteps, and treading those same steps in turn. They had small conversation as they'd gone; he'd asked her how her farewells had gone, and she'd replied as honestly as she'd dared. She didn't want Haldir knowing she was struggling with the idea of being parted from the Fellowship.

He had taken her on without even the glimmer of a complaint. Whining to him about being parted from her friends felt like some sort of betrayal.

"Mae govannen Rúmil ah Orophin," Haldir switched to his native tongue to greet his brothers. "Hannon le an govanneth hi."

Loena had been forced to resurrect her paltry elvish for her time in Lothlórien, where the elves were unlikely to understand her if she spoke the common tongue. She knew enough to make out that Haldir had greeted his brothers and thanked them for waiting for them.

One of the brothers' spoke, and Loena recognised it as Rúmil, who had led her beneath the boughs to Caras Galadhon, exhausted as she'd been from their trials in Moria. Her heart panged as she remembered all that they had lost in the deep, dark of that Evil place. She shivered and pulled her cloak around her.

The brothers spoke for a moment longer. She realised that the other, Orophin, must have spoken to her, picking out her name in the middle of an unfamiliar Elvish phrase.

"Uh," she said, wracking her brain. "Law bedin edhellen?" I don't speak elvish.

Orophin spoke again, and the three brothers laughed.

"He says; 'well enough to speak one phrase, at least'," Haldir told her, laughing still. Loena managed a dry chuckle.

A female voice floated across from behind them. "Mae govannen, Haldir a Loena."

Haldir's brothers called out, mirth on their voice. The sweet elvish voice called back, slightly in scorn, and Loena figured that she had included them in the new greeting.

"This is Tavorel," Haldir introduced the new elf. "She will be accompanying us." He spoke to her in rapid Sindarin, and she answered in kind. "She says she speaks very little Common Tongue, and apologises."

Loena felt at her cloak with her fingers, tightening the fabric around so tightly that her skin glowed white. "Tell her that I care not."

Haldir conveyed the message, and Loena felt utterly lonely. For a split moment, she felt sick with fear. The Fellowship had always kept her relatively centred by describing their surroundings as they went. Everything from Legolas's beautiful descriptions, to Pippin's rough approximations, had been blessed reprieves from her frustrating ignorance.

She knew Haldir would tell her if she asked him, but his mastery of the Common Language was far from complete. It was difficult enough for him to speak to her as he did.

With Tavorel now with them, they moved off rather quickly. Loena was placed between Haldir and Rúmil in their single file march into the forest. It had been more of a challenge than Loena had anticipated, and she realised how spoilt she had been walking along the cleared grounds in Caras Galadhon. She had fallen twice over root and rock in the first half hour of walking, and had only been saved from smashing to the ground by Rúmil dashing forward and catching her.

Loena had half expected Haldir to begin to purposefully make his steps louder, but he did no such thing. She wasn't sure whether she was irritated by it, or relieved.

She started to listen more carefully, and noted when steps seemed to sound like they'd been taken out of a rhythm. That usually meant there was a root ahead, and Loena would take an extra moment positioning her foot before she carried on. As the day progressed, she became more confident at it. The rhythm of irregular step, and then her addressing it, became second instinct. She barely needed to think about it by the time Haldir called for their first break.

Famished, Loena accepted the offered thin, wafer bread gratefully. Haldir had only given her a small piece, and she was about to ask for more, before Rúmil spoke to her;

"This is lembas bread," he said, his voice halting. "It is…it is enough."

"Just this?" she asked, weighing it in her hand as if she was testing whether the weight of it had simply been hidden by its smallness. "This would barely satisfy a babe."

Rúmil said something to Orophin, and his brother laughed. Tavorel said something as well, her rapid Sindarin like the sound of the Nimrodel the Fellowship had crossed to enter Lothlórien.

"What do you say?" Loena asked, too hungry to be particularly dignified in her attitude.

"They are eager to see your reaction after you have eaten this small amount," Haldir told her.

She obliged them, and was surprised to find that she had no desire to eat more after finishing it.

Her mood was improved, but she was still surly. "It would have been no more effort to let me know the bread had elvish magic to it."

"I apologise," Haldir said, in the same flat tone he used all the time. Loena couldn't tell whether he was being sincere or not. "But it is interesting for us to watch you; we have met very few people who have never eaten lembas before."

Loena gave a noncommittal hum, and the elves began to talk amongst themselves.

Haldir didn't let them rest for long. They were back up on their feet soon thereafter, moving along at the same, rigorous pace that they'd left Caras Galadhon with. Loena had taken to moving her hands lightly ahead of her, feeling the bark with her fingers as she walked.

She stumbled sometimes still, but not as much, or as drastically, as she had at the beginning. Rúmil had only needed to steady her once more.

Loena felt the shift in the temperature of the air, and realised with a start that the day was coming to an end. The sun was setting, the night was coming; they had walked through the trees all day.

She realised that the sun was setting when the elves around her began to sing softly, their fine, high voices rising up around her. Bumps arose on the skin of her arm as they sung. It was something lovely, and sad, and too quickly spoken for her to discern any of the words properly.

But when they finished, the world seemed much colder.

The elves did not stop for the night; their sight was strong enough to discern the leaves and roots in the gloom. They walked for another two hours at least after the singing had finished, and their general conversations had started again.

Over the course of the walking, Haldir had started some conversations with Loena, but she had found it difficult to split her focus between keeping her feet and answering his questions.

Her tongue was strange with disuse by the time they settled in for the night. None of the elves lit a fire – they didn't want to attract the attention of any orc that might pass through. From Loena's experience with Legolas, she knew that they were largely doing this for her benefit. Elves could sleep standing up, with their eyes open. Even then, they needed less than humans.

But Loena's feet were sore, and she was exhausted. She listened to them sing to each other for a while, but slowly fell asleep, warm exhaustion too heavy to keep at bay.

The next day, they were roused early. Loena's eyes still burned from tiredness when she opened them, and she could barely will herself to sit up.

"Many…" Tavorel said, and then paused. "Well…met, Loena."

Loena felt slightly touched that she'd tried so hard to speak with her. She wondered if Haldir had taught her any of the Common Tongue while she'd been sleeping. "Mae govannen, Tavorel." She turned to Haldir with a little uncertainty. "Hannon le."

That was about the extent of her Elvish, but Tavorel laughed with delight. "Cin ped edhelen!"

Loena looked to Haldir with uncertainty, and he chuckled. "She thinks you have played a trick on us, and that you've been fluent in Sindarin since you arrived." He murmured something to her, and she said something back, sounding a little disappointed.

"Oh, er, goheno nin," Loena said, directing her words to where she'd placed Tavorel as standing. "Haldir, how do I say 'I only know very basic phrases'?"

Haldir paused, and then rattled off a very quick and incomprehensible elvish sentence.

Loena hesitated. "Uh…" She cleared her throat, and opened it to try to repeat what Haldir had said, but stopped herself before that disaster could become realised. "Did she hear that?"

"She did," Haldir affirmed.

"Does she know it was meant to come from me?" Loena pressed.

"I believe so," Haldir said, and Tavorel said something quickly, laughing her quick, silver laugh when she'd finished. "Yes, she does. She says that she is sorry for presuming, and that she had been enthusiastic to be able to properly talk to you."

"Ah," Loena said, feeling a twinge of guilt for all the surly thoughts she'd had about Tavorel. "Tell her…that I wish to speak to her as well."

Three days past in much the same way as the first. The party pushed on further and further through the forest, in the same order as they had been before. Rúmil had become a close companion to Loena, and they'd spend hours trying to teach each other their own first language. Rúmil already knew much more Common tongue than Loena knew Sindarin, which made the exchange rather more beneficial to Loena.

As her Sindarin improved, so too did her ability to navigate. She began to phase in and out of listening to Haldir's steps in front of her, and focused on other things. There was a pattern to the way things happened; the angle of the root she just stepped upon often meant she could predict when the next one arose before her. When that didn't work, she'd taken to angling her foot protectively as she walked, to absorb any sudden jarring irregularities.

The trees themselves, the forest's silent protectors, were harder, but Loena was coming to terms with them as well. When the day was windy, she would follow the passage where the stream was strongest. She knew the wind had to bend to come around the bough. When the roots were too tall, she knew she was close to bark, and she'd reach out her hand to feel where it was before her.

And these were Elven woods. Sometimes she thought she could hear them, feel them, speaking to her, guiding her around them. Sometimes the bark was feather soft beneath her fingers.

On the fourth day, after many hours of walking, the party came to a stop. Loena did not need to be told, and she did not run into Haldir in front of her. She felt the rhythm end, she heard the footsteps cease, and she could hear a raising voice around her of curiosity.

Haldir spoke quickly to his brothers and to Tavorel, and through her improved Sindarin, Loena made out "Yrch." Orc.

Loena waited, rubbing the back of her leg, where the muscles had become sort from travel. She waited some more, hearing the movement around her. It was slow, and purposeful. She waited longer, and longer, beginning to grow irritated.

She forced herself not to snap when she asked Rúmil; "why do we linger?"

"Linger?" he asked, not understanding.

Loena wracked her brains, hurriedly rephrasing. "Why do we stop, here, now?"

Rúmil must have understood, for he said; "we must count the number of orc. We may not have opportunity later."

Loena understood then, and felt rather foolish. It would make sense for such a small company to need to be as prepared as possible. These Elven hunters were probably fine enough in detail that they'd be able to distinguish one footstep from the other – especially with orcs, who had disfigured feet.

"How many do they see?" Loena said after a very long moment, feeling her irritation build again.

"14 as of now," Rúmil said, rather breezily. "We think there will be more."

Loena nodded her understanding. The orcs that had come onto Rohirric land often travelled in packs of about 30, though the numbers were often fewer. Loena knew that orcs would often kill each other, whether for food, for glory, or simply out of boredom. If this orc pack had been one the same number as those sent out from Orthanc, then it was likely that they numbered more than 14. Though, if they had been sent out many months ago, there was also a good chance that half had been killed over their meagre rations of mouldy bread.

Loena ended up sitting down on a root of one of the trees behind her as the hours dragged on. Hunting in Rohan was a very different matter – they would normally attempt to approximate some number, but were never concerned with exactness. The storming of an eored, even outnumbered, was a frightening thing. None could stand against it.

Finally, Haldir came to stand before her. She pulled herself up achingly, using the tree to balance as the blood rushed back to her legs.

"You knew I was here," Haldir surmised.

"I know what you sound like," Loena said in way of answer.

"I come to you now, Loena, because we must hereon move quickly. We will not be walking."

Loena caught his meaning immediately. Aware she seemed to be leaning on the tree for support, she immediately dropped her hand, and stood balanced atop a tree root. "I can manage." She'd said the words before the implication became clear. She had a sudden swooping vision of herself charging into a tree erupted into her way.

She steeled herself.

"There is ample opportunity to turn back," Haldir said softly, and she realised he was unconvinced. "Tavorel or Rúmil could take you. It would be no matter."

Loena ignored the temptation. Galadriel had sent her out here for a reason, and she trusted that it was a good one. She balled her hands. "I will keep the pace, my friend. So long as I have someone running ahead of me."

Haldir paused for a moment. "I have never doubted the Lady of Light, not once. I know she has a reason to place you here, amongst us."

Loena grinned.

The hunt was on.

Loena thrummed her feet along the ground, paying attention to every shift and push, every grunt and step and creak around her. She'd have fleeting moments, as they ran, where it felt as though the forest around her was suddenly clear. When she knew where all the trees were instinctively, with more strength and clarity than she had when she had had her sight.

These were only fleeting, but they helped her keep her feet placed right. As soon as she pushed on, the image vanished, and she was back to trusting in her ears and the sting of the wind on her cheeks.

She had no capacity to focus on anything except the task ahead of her. She kept a close ear on where Haldir pressed his feet back down to the earth, but his strides were wider than hers, and more often than not she had no precursor to the next step she was taking.

But still, still, she pressed on. Rhythm and knowledge came to coalesce in her mind. The drumming of her feet steeled her, kept her, held her. Around her the wind whipped, and the trees groaned atop their passing. Her heart beat fast in her chest, and her breath came quickly, but measured.

They slept briefly that night, and awoke when the air was still cool. Haldir passed around a bottle of Miruvor, an elvish drink that had kept the Fellowship going during the first 40 days from Rivendell.

"It has been a week since we left Caras Galadhon, am I wrong?" Loena asked.

Haldir affirmed, "that is true. Just last night my lady visited me in a dream, and told me that in the six says since we'd left the centre of her Realm, the moon had ended its phase and begun another, and in its brightest, had slowed the Orc's passage."

"Have they slowed by much?" Loena asked, curious, and a little bemused that Haldir had kept this information to himself. Loena surmised that he'd likely had the dream and thought it an irrelevant fancy to those he travelled with. Loena sometimes felt like a child when it came to the elves – they would withhold things from her as if expecting that she would have difficulty understanding it.

"They have slowed enough," Haldir said. "We will gain on them much faster than expected."

They started off running again, and Loena barely needed an hour before she was as confident and comfortable as she had gotten to the day before. They sped over the forest floor, and she breathed in the air with increasing comfort. She felt strong, capable. In the same way that she had atop Snowbourne, charging over the Rohirric lands.

The thought of her homeland sent a pang through her chest. She stumbled a little as she lost the ground beneath her feet for a moment, but grit her teeth and refocused. She could miss Rohan later, she could reflect later, she could be sad and morose later.

Now she ran.

The day steadily warmed around them. Tavorel and Orophin spoke to each other as easily as if they were walking. Rúmil and Haldir called to each other from time to time. Loena thought she heard her name a few times, but she didn't have the concentration to try to pick apart the foreign tongue.

A scattering breeze flowed down to the small company, carrying with it a low, hoarse grunt. Loena heard it at the same time as the elves around her, and pulled to a stop. Loena heard her breath, sucked in deep, and her heartbeat in her ears.

Her fingers reflexively turned around Gíed's hilt. She felt Haldir's hand on her shoulder, steadying her. Her shoulder relaxed.

"We will walk quietly," Haldir said to all of them, his voice barely above a whisper. He had leant close to Loena so that she could hear him. "Prepare your bows. I will not risk close-encounter warfare yet."

No swords! Loena wanted to object, but she clenched her jaw. She would embarrass herself with a bow, she was certain. Arrows would fling off metres from their mark without her sight. Galadriel had sent her out here with no purpose after all.

Nevertheless, she pulled tight in with the group, and made not a sound as she pushed over the ground. She couldn't help the breaking of some twigs and the crackling of some leaves underfoot, and at each ungainly sound she winced and swallowed.

Haldir pressed them to stop once more, now close enough to the orcs that they didn't need the wind to hear the sounds of their camp.

The orcs grunted their chat with each other, and Loena could hear the crackle of the fire under the sounds of their conversation. It was day, when they would sleep as well as they could and avoid the sight of the sun.

She wondered if any slept, but knew it would be a bad idea to speak.

Haldir grasped Loena's wrist, and she realised he meant to lead her to where he wanted to put her. Tavorel, Rúmil and Orophin slipped off, their footsteps fading off into the woods. They were a company so used to each other they needed almost no direction, no communication.

Loena followed Haldir, keeping close to him, as they moved slowly over the forest ground.

He led her against a tree, and silently pulled her hand, pressing her palm against it, as if to say here.

Leaves rustled ahead of her, and Loena concentrated. In one brief moment, she saw the trees in front of her, she saw the gap through which the orc camp was visible. She heard the murmurings of her enemy, the softness of the bark. She felt the wind writhe through the trees, and seemed to track its journey.

In a moment, all the forest was clear to her. She felt as though she could feel the 20 gathered orc before her. Distinguish them as easily as though they were stood before her in full sight.

Haldir tapped her shoulder, as if to ask permission to leave her alone. She nodded, brisk.

He disappeared, scampering up a tree a few metres to her right.

Slowly, slowly, Loena pulled her bow from her shoulder. She hoisted an arrow from her quiver, and set it against the string. It thrummed under her finger, and she stroked the feathers to steady her nerve. The great breath before the break. The first drops of rain before the storm.

Haldir called out, something strange and sweet; something that anyone nonsuspicious would presume a birdcall.

Loena pulled her bow up, and breathed out carefully. She distinguished one Orc's voice from the many. A slightly higher pitch to its call. It laughed a horrible, hacking laugh, and Loena narrowed it down with a near certainty.

He cleared his throat, and Loena felt like the vibrations were shaking in her head.

Haldir made the call again, and she pulled her bow back, and wood creaking against her ear. This time, he made no call, releasing his first arrow with a twang. Loena followed suit, sucking in her breath and releasing barely a moment later.

The first arrow made its mark; Loena made out the same Orc's dying screams, choking on the blood rising up its throat. The sounds of alarm raced through camp, a great thundering of horrid realisation. Around her, Loena made out the sound of her company's bows twanging as they shot fast and true. They were impossibly accurate and impossibly quick. For every one that Loena shot, they'd struck three orc dead.

She pulled back, and released. The string dug into her fingers, and her shoulder ached with the strain. She shot again, and the string grazed against her cheek. She ignored the pain, stringing another and listening out. She found the next one, crying out in panic, and noted its death cries with satisfaction. Her next arrow clanked uselessly to the floor, and the next thudded into the trunk of a tree.

Up beside her Haldir shot true and severely.

The first few minutes of the assault were the most bloody, and the element of surprise meant that more orcs were cut down than Loena could keep track of. Soon, though, the orc's called to each other roughly, and noting a gap through the trees, banded together and pushed each other away from the assault.

Loena supposed that fear and the shock of it had forced them to abandon reason. She supposed that if they had spent enough time mulling over how many directions the arrows were flying from, and thus the number of attackers, one of the elves would have stuck them through the throat.

Tavorel called out in elvish, and Haldir, Rúmil and Orophin called back in same.

Haldir dropped to the ground beside Loena a mere moment later.

"Haldir!" She called, dropping her bow by her side.

"Now, we follow," he told her, and she stuck her bow over her back and pushed through the trees. The orcs thundering ahead was noise enough to follow; far more distinct than the near silent footsteps of the elves that she had been painstakingly measuring her steps by in the days past. She did not need to wait for the others to come.

She ran off by herself.

Gíed was up and into her hands in two swift movements, cutting through the weak branches ahead of her as she thundered after the orc army. Tree, swerve, leaves rustling and a slash through, the roots of a great tree rose up before her, puckering the earth just before it, pushing into her feet. She leapt from root to root, feeling the size of them for the distance of the next one. Always, always, listening and listening.

The orcs yelled for each other as they moved, mostly in their guttural, firery language, but sometimes in the Common Tongue. She heard some call to stop, and to fight.

Yes, she thought, and pulled on more speed.

She heard Tavorel run beside her, and then overtake her, elf-quick beneath the forest. Rúmil and Orophin moved slower than their elloth companion, but still gained easily on Loena, keeping pace with her once they'd reached her. Haldir came along behind them all, bow still in hand.

"Loena!" he called, and she heard the creak of his bow. She dropped her speed and bent over, an arrow pushing over her head, and burying itself in the back of a fleeing orc. It fell heavily just before her, and she leapt up to avoid it, landing awkwardly, but keeping her footing.

"STAND AND FIGHT!" she heard an orc yell out angrily, and she realised that it had stopped.

"FLEE, SCUM!" another yelled, pushing on, smashing through the undergrowth.

She heard Tavorel ahead give a great cry, before lashing out with her elven knives, the Orc who had stopped fell heavily in its death to the ground. Loena came upon them quickly.

"Tavorel?" She asked meekly, trying her best to mean; are you alright?

"Loena," Tavorel said firmly, understanding; yes, I am fine.

Loena pushed on forward, and realised with a vengeful glee that the Orc had stopped up ahead. The leader had finally coerced them into stopping and fighting. It was smart, really. The elves were tireless, and had enough arrows for each of them strapped onto their backs. At least this way, the Orcs could take as many of their attackers with them as they could.

Rúmil, Orophin and Loena came upon the orcs at the same time, bursting through the undergrowth. Orophin pushed through firing his arrows, steely eyed and steady. Rúmil had his own sword out, a light-sounding sword that sand with each wing. Loena came along between them, holding Gíed up beside her, thirsty for Orc blood.

The first that charged at her swung with its scimitar lazily, and she punished it quickly. She swung at its hand and cut hard enough that the orc's blade dropped to the ground. Without pausing she sliced across, cutting into its chest, a little too low for its throat. She growled and focused, pulling back the momentum and aiming a little higher, satisfied as the body crumpled to the ground in front of her.

She leapt over it, slamming into the next one, pushing it off balance and stabbing it quickly in the chest. The next screamed as it bore down on her, and the scimitar pushed against Loena's blade twice before she pushed it through, cutting across the sinew and muscle of its chest, and then stabbing it up through its stomach.

The next came from behind her, she could hear its feet thrumming on the ground. Loena spared no thought, stabbing back without turning and finding flesh, and then flipping around and tugging the sword out with one action. The orc screamed, wounded but not dead. She ducked against the wild swing of its blade, and made use of its recklessness by cutting up through its chest, wrenching so hard as to dig Gíed in nearly to its hilt. She snarled and dug in further. She was a Shield maiden of Rohan.

She pulled free and lashed back, blocking a strike from above and then, with a screaming, frustrated grunt, slicing the offending orcs head off.

None but the Great Hunter himself could stay her sword.

The company sliced and parried and cut, harkening out the screaming of their enemies. And Loena was as much within them as she could have ever been, whirling through her dark world, feeling her way through on sound and touch and smell.

And then, all of a sudden, the moment was over.

Silence reigned around her.

Loena breathed deeply, chest heaving. Gíed trembled in her hand, dripping blood from its tip onto the grass at her feet. She felt the black Orc blood on her face and hands.

She had done it. As well as she'd fought in Rohan, as well as she'd ever fought in Rohan.

"Loena," she heard a voice behind her, and she turned to face it. Haldir, it was, and he sounded slightly mysticised. "You fight well."

She bowed to him slightly, inclining her head. "You taught me well, friend."

Tavorel and Orophin came up beside them, and then Rúmil to Loena's left. The five of them stood together, and surveyed all that they had done. Loena could hear a dripping somewhere, of blood easing from a cut. Every drop came a little later after the one before.

"Did any escape?" Loena asked finally, rolling her shoulder back and stretching the sore, warm muscle there.

"None," Haldir confirmed. "There are 25 dead in these woods. We must move them, lest their decay poison the soil."

And they would, they would move all the bodies back to the clearing that the orcs had first made camp in. It would be backbreaking, thankless work. Orcs were heavy, unforgiving beasts. Once there, the orcs would be set alight, and the acrid scent of their burning flesh would pollute the forest.

Now, however, they stood.

Tavorel came to her, and Loena turned her head to her, curious. The elf pressed her hand to Loena's forehead, and murmured something, and then pulled away.

"Haldir," Loena said slowly, though she did not turn away from Tavorel. "What does she say?"

"She has named you," Haldir said, reverent. "Eyeless, the Warrior."


	16. Elvellon

They made camp early that night. After the days of running, Loena took the opportunity for a break with a deep thanks, settling into sleep with little difficulty. Her exhausted body eased onto the ground, head resting on soft moss.

The sun bled gold every day thereafter; a clear vial of good-poison. It revitalised the land like rain, like soft snow, turned the old-hills green and the new-crops tall. Crops could be planted now, the Great Hunter had willed it so.

And all the things the Great Hunter willed, the kind old sun would know.

The New-King was a kind King, a Gold king. His fine new-Hall in the South had been finished just a few years before. She had not seen it yet, but they told her that it rivalled the beauty of the great Glittering Caves behind Helm's Deep, they told her that the sun itself seemed to be captured by earth. They told her that all races across Arda would come by foot or by horseback to see it against the rising sun.

She did not know if she believed them.

Nevertheless, she went. It was a long journey from where she had been; hidden in the old-hills, creeping along behind the fall of night and beneath the creeping day, sending the last of the vile-Men back to their holes in the mountains. No more would they accost her and her people, no more would they spill blood upon her lands.

The small village she stopped in was a New-Village, and was barely a generation old. The families there were drawn of face and short of wit. None had room for her to lodge, and very few had food to trade for the coins she had strapped to her chest. On the outskirts of town, beside a field of new-Crops, a farmer agreed to house her and her horse in his grand stable beside his house. It was a building finer than some houses; walls sturdy, roof thatched evenly, with a door that closed and locked. Inside the cows huddled together in the corner, and the farmer's own horses were gathered against the east wall. She was to tie her horse there, and it was to eat the oats and grain set out along there.

She did not wish to sleep early that night. The sky was the old-sky still, despite the death and new-birth of the moon. She was always careful to make sure that the new moon never brought about a different sky. It was how she and her people kept track of where they were. Her eastern sky was still there, mottled in its familiar way. Her southern pointers remained as well.

Still, she sat outside and stared into the flames of the fire she had started. She ate the bread she had traded for from the miller in town, and the cheese she had bought from the widow dark of hair-and-eye.

She was not alone for long, and she had not expected to be. She was a wild beauty, and the farmer had a son a few years her senior, and without a wife. She was adorned richly, in clothes gifted from the king. She had a circlet of gold in her hair, a new-treasure gifted to her. Her horse was well bred, and she was generous with coin. She spoke well, commanded attention, and held her shoulders like a queen.

He found her humming to herself over the dying flames of her fire. He was a well built boy, with sand coloured hair, sky coloured eyes and sun bruised skin.

He asked her; "where do you ride from?"

And so she said; "I ride from battle, my friend. And from the North."

He was quiet a moment, before asking; "And where do you ride to?"

She answered him easily; "I ride to Meduseld, to the hall of the king. They say that all those who gaze upon it are new-Changed."

"Do you wish to be changed?"

"I wish for change."

"One is not the other."

She was slow to answer, staring into her little, warm fire. "I wish to be changed." She wished to be healed.

He was quiet a moment again. "Do you wish to be changed, new, from a solider to a woman?"

The woman did not want to answer, but she knew she must. "One can be both."

"You ride your horse like a man."

"Men ride their horse like I."

He said; "A woman should not have to pick up arms. A woman should be safe in her home, where she defends the hearth. I could protect you; I am strong, I have a sword I have named after our New-King; I have a season of crop in the fields, and a father would wishes for me to find a wife." He said; "I could take care of you. You would not have to fight anymore." He said; "You would be safe. And quiet."

"I thank you, I sincerely do," she said frankly. "I would accept your proposal except that I am fond of my sword, and I like how it sings when I wield it. I could not be kept here, away from the world I love to defend."

"A woman does not defend the homeland, she creates it."

"This woman does both."

"It is not your responsibility," the young man argued, determined to have her fold to him, determined that she should rescind her "no".

"Aye," she said, and looked from the fire to his eye. She held it with a deep, slow seriousness. "It is my right."

"How could one think that?"

"When one can read the old-sky like I can, when one can wield a sword like my hand can, when one rides her horse as swiftly as I do; there is no justification for not fighting for the Good and Noble." She said, "It is my right to Wield and Sacrifice my arms for that which I Love."

Love.

"By any means, by any cost, for this same purpose."

Loena wrenched herself from sleep.

The air was damp and cold when she awoke. It was early in the morning, most likely a few hours before sunrise. Around her, the soft, sleeping sounds of the elves grounded her. She took in as much as she could, mapping out how their campsite unfolded around her.

The dream had not been disturbing, but she was shaking as if it had been terrifying. To steady herself, she sat up, and rubbed her face with her fingers. She held her palms over her eyes, taking deep, full breaths.

The dream had been eerily clear. She knew well enough that dreams could be glimpses into worlds beyond their own. Her mother, Bréa, would sometimes have terrible, great dreams about a crumbling city by a large lake, haunted by lonely memories. Once out commanding a raid against a contingent of orcs, Éomer had told Loena about a dream he'd had where a lovely, devastated elven woman had wandered the lands forevermore, breaking down and dying of her lonely, broken heart.

This had the same aching, abandoned feel to it. Like an echo, a moment from a different time.

It had a different urgency, though. It was not just a dream teaching her a lesson, it was a dream asking her to act.

The words pushed and pushed through Loena's head; that which I Love.

Loena was blessed to love many things, she supposed. She pushed herself up, and stood with uncertainty, feeling as though she must move and expel some of the energy that had built up within her. She loved her mother, she loved her homeland, she loved her sword, and her horse. She loved the way the river Nimrodel had sounded as they'd walked together from Moria, and she'd loved sparring with the Hobbits…

And eating with the Hobbits, and talking with Aragorn, and comforting Gimli, and learning from Legolas, sparring with Boromir… She had a sudden, deep panging loss expand down to her toes. She sucked in her breath as it expanded deeper; it hurt.

She missed them. She had barely seen them in the weeks before she'd left. Why had she left? To come and to learn with the elves? It felt selfish now, strange. Like she'd thought herself the heroine of a poem.

She had been so preoccupied with obsessing over what she could give, she hadn't thought to think about why she was giving it in the first place.

It didn't matter if she couldn't quantify her achievements into song. Nothing mattered if she was not fighting for that which she loved.

She loved the Fellowship. She loved each of them. She loved Frodo, and she never should have abandoned him. She would find him, and she would walk with him to the fires of Mordor. And there she would burn her skin and suck in the poisonous gases of the volcano, and there she would almost certainly die, forgotten and small and insignificant.

But it didn't matter.

The thought was immediately freeing, and Loena nearly giggled with the intensity of the relief that washed over her.

If she contributed nothing, she contributed nothing. But that should have never been a point to stop trying.

She waited for the elves to awake themselves. She spoke quickly to Haldir, and he complied easily.

They would run back, at the same intense speed that they'd moved at the first time they had come upon the Orc's scent. They would move quickly, and without delay.

And so they did.

The journey that had taken them 7 days took them 4 on the return. It was gruelling, and exhausting, and unbearably repetitive.

None of the four elves complained. None shirked. They were strong.

But she felt it not. She cared not for her own pains, for the ache in her toes, the steaming sting on her ankles and knees. And when her lungs burned, she blew her air our deeply, like a dragon breathing fire.

Caras Galadham arose before them, sweet of scent and warm to the touch. It was easily passed through, and the nearness of the end of their journey spurred their speed on further. They pushed through into toward the great trees that supported the Talans, and finally, finally, came to a stop beneath those lofty boughs.

Haldir sucked in a breath, and murmured to Loena; "the White Lady approaches."

But Loena had known. She had felt it, known it, a deep awakening in her heart. Galadriel was coming.

"My Lady," Haldir bowed to her, and Loena realised that she had come to stand before them. Complying, Loena dipped her head in a bow. Tavorel, Rúmil and Orophin complied as well, murmuring their platitudes in Elvish.

"I would properly welcome you back, but I must beg haste of you, for I know the reason for your return," Galadriel said to them each.

The Warrior, Galadriel's voice floated through Loena's head. Eyeless.

'It was by my insistence, my Lady," Loena spoke, stepping forward. "I know my path, now, and I seek to follow it."

"I see your path with a clarity," Galadriel concurred. "It is merely moments away from you. But, I fear that I have a different reason to spur you to action." She had turned grave. "I have spied something, something I dearly fear, in the clear waters of my pool. The Fellowship is in danger, and every day the Ring's power grows." Loena felt her heart clench. "It had failed with you, and now it tries again."

"I must go," Loena said, spluttered, coming forward. "I must. I cannot leave them, not when I…"

"Not when there is air in your lungs, and a beat to your heart," Galadriel concurred. "You will set off, of course. Today, if you are able. And sooner, if you are willing."

"How soon?" Loena inquired quickly.

Galadriel must have looked to Haldir, for he answered; "if she is to ride a steed, with enough help all preparations can be completed in the next hour."

"What can I do?" Loena turned to Haldir.

"Then you have an hour," Galadriel said, effectively dismissing them before Haldir could answer Loena. "I shall meet you at the Anduin, and you shall follow the river to find your companions."

"Thank you, my lady," Loena said, reverent, determined. "I will never forget your kindness to me."

"Go, prepare," Galadriel insisted.

Shieldmaiden of Rohan. The whisper filled Loena's head.

Haldir had let Tavorel and his two brothers go to wash and rest, enlisting the help of the two elves beside Galadriel to finalise preparations. They had been sent to go prepare her pack and gather the food and water she'd need for her journey.

Haldir and Loena's job was slightly more interesting. Haldir led Loena down through the glen to where the elves kept their horses.

"We have no bridles, nor saddles," Haldir said apologetically. "It is not our custom. I know the riders of your land use them."

"It is no matter," Loena shrugged it off, trying to ignore the rising nervousness. "I rode a Meares without with Gandalf. I am sure I will manage."

"I am glad," Haldir said. He cleared his throat in an awkward, very un-elf-like manner, and stopped. "Loena—"

"Yes?" She asked, turning, annoyed that they were delaying.

"I only meant to say…" He paused. "I have been meaning to tell you, these days past, how thankful I am that the Lady sought me out to be your teacher. It has been an honour watching you."

Loena's irritation dissipated, replaced now by a deep and rolling gratefulness. "Oh, Haldir, I—"

"You fought side-by-side with my kin and I, and you fought well," Haldir pressed on. "You helped to defend the borders of this land, and for that, we shall always be grateful to you."

"Haldir, thank you!" Loena insisted, with a cry. "None of that would have been possible without you. I…I cannot believe your patience. And your generosity. I did not deserve the time you gave to me."

"You deserved all of it and more," Haldir told her, without a waver, utterly convinced. "And it is for these reasons that I have decided to name you Elvellon. Dear to my heart, and Friend to Elves." He looked at her seriously. "For your effort, and your fight, if ever you need the assistance of the elves of my Kin, that assistance shall arrive."

"Hannon le, mellon," Loena made out, tears pushing at her eyes. She wanted to pull Haldir in, and hold him close, and tell him by that how deeply thankful she was for him.

"We cannot afford to delay any longer," Haldir said, though he sounded rather irritated by himself as he did. "Come, let us find you a steed worthy of the skill of your lands."

Loena laughed. "If such a steed exists."

The horses gathered together in a loose herd to the West of Caras Galadhrim. They were mostly unconcerned by the arrival of Haldir and Loena; a few horses stopped chewing, raised their heads and adjusted their hooves, and turned back a moment later for grazing. Just one horse kept its head up toward them. It flicked its ears with a sharp swift sound against the air, and nickered, as though it were suspicious.

"All would be a perfectly adequate choice," Haldir half-boasted as they gazed out at the roughly assembled herd. "The elves have a special skill with steeds. They become stronger, and smarter, the longer the spend in our realms."

"Which is that one?" Loena asked, before thinking.

Haldir followed her pointed finger to the young horse. "A brown colt. It is looking at us."

"Does he look as though he could bear me a long way?" she asked. "Does he look like he would survive days of hard riding?"

"He looks in perfect health," Haldir confirmed.

"What is his name?"

"Gwinig," Haldir answered.

"What does this mean?"

"It is a play-name we give to children," Haldir said. "It means little finger. He must have been a particularly rambunctious foal."

Loena pushed her instinct. "I shall ride him."

Haldir affirmed; "As you wish."

The bag they gave her was long of handle, and light to the touch, in the style of the elves. She felt leaves embroidered along the crisp sewn edges with careful fingers, and styled flowers amongst them. In it she founds loaves of lembas wrapped in large leaf, a skin of miruvor that smelt sweet and fresh when she opened it, a thin blanket to protect her from the cold of the ground, and a flint to start fires with.

She herself had spent the afternoon repairing her arrows and filling her quiver with new ones. Her sword was as sharp and as bright as it had been in her days as Ensign of the Riddermark. It swung against her hip as she strode through the forest with her new confidence.

She spared a moment at the camp spot where she and the fellowship had spent their time in the elven wood. It was abandoned, and still, and cold. A hand to the charcoal of the fire was dry, and cold, and old. They had been gone for over a week, Haldir had discovered.

Their absence haunted her, like a ghost. Love. She would find them, keep them from harm. She spent only a moment there, retrieving a small knife for cooking, and her water-skin from where she'd left it, and a spare pair of thick woollen socks. The comfort things; the pillows and softness and blankets she left without a second thought.

They had left her clothes similar to those that she had arrived in; a pair of woollen stockings, pants to wear over the top, and then a tunic, a shirt that was soft against her skin, a thicker shirt made of rougher fabric that would protect her against the wind, and a pair of new leather boots.

She knew not the way to where the elves of Galadriel's realm set their boats upon the Anduin, and so Haldir guided her.

As they walked, he handed her a cloak; it was light in her hands, and soft. She felt it between her forefinger and thumb, surprised at the lightness.

As if to answer her unasked question, "The fabric is Elven, and the design is as well. It will hide you from enemy eyes, and protect you from all evil weathers. It will not tear, and the clasp will never wear to break. One could travel the entire of Arda in this, and come back in the end to find it in such a state as though no travel had occurred at all."

Impressed, Loena pulled it around her shoulders. She thanked him, nodding her head, and breathed in the scent of the fabric. It had the unidentifiable, soft smell of the forest she had been living in. All at once she felt steadied and warmed.

"What will you do now?" Loena asked him, finishing the clasp at her throat.

Haldir straightened a little beside her, puffing his chest out in pride. "Galadriel has, herself, asked me to oversee the development of a more cohesive operation to our current arms situation. She worries that as the orcs pass more frequently over our land, that we will soon need a standing army."

Army. "Are there enough elves left in Lothlórien to form an army?" Loena asked. "Surely most would have passed to the Grey Havens."

"Many have," Haldir admitted, and pulled her to her left, and she turned with him. "But many remain; many have not yet felt the call of the sea." Haldir paused. "And many that have will not abandon Middle Earth now, not with the encroaching evil in the East.

"Even I have started to have dreams, great dreams, of a crashing wave, and the swell pushing up against a great, white cliff face. I fear my time is ending soon."

"Are you sorry to go?" Loena asked, sad and not surprised. She hesitated before asking, "Surely you are excited to reclaim your homeland, and live amongst your people?"

"Lothlórien is the only home I have ever known," Haldir said, surprisingly morose, voice flat. "I do not revel in the thought of leaving it. And my people are the people of these woods. But," he perked up, his voice becoming far brighter. "I trust in my Lady, and her Lord husband. They have never led us astray."

"I hope I will get the chance to see you again, before you go," Loena said wistfully.

Haldir laughed, sounding somewhat surprised. "Well, Rohan is a close nation to ours, and the lives of elves are long and without hurry. If I am to leave soon; well, such a word 'soon' has a different meaning to the ears of an elf than it does to a human."

"Then we will meet again," Loena said decisively. "Even if I am to wander the woods of Lothlórien blind and directionless."

"We are bound, now, Elvellon," Haldir affirmed, and he pulled away from her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. "There is no power in this world great enough to sever it."

"My teacher," Loena bowed her head.

"My most honoured student," Haldir replied, with good humour. "Now, come, for the Lady and the Lord have arrived at the bank of the Anduin. And there waits your horse, and your pack. The time is coming for you to leave." He hesitated, before saying; "the way will not be as easy as it was with us. You will have no footsteps to follow, and the woods beyond our borders and rough and wild. The orcs hold the eastern shore. You shall ride upon the west, but even there they are high in number. Trust your steed, he will not lead you astray."

"I shall heed your advice, Haldir," Loena nodded her thanks. Then, with a fond smile; "farewell, mellon," Loena reached up to his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it. He squeezed back in answer, and they separated.

"Galu, Elvellon," Haldir said softly. "Na lu e-govaned wîn."

"Loena," a crisp voice called on the wind, just as the same spoke Loena in her mind. She turned towards where Galadriel's voice had floated from. "The sun is high, and the time is now. We must not delay."

Loena obliged her quickly, turning away from Haldir and tracking quickly across the ground, skidding just at the last moment to avoid tripping over a root.

She arrived, slightly deflated, in front of the Lady of Light.

"My Lady," she bowed her head. She swallowed, and attempted some of the elvish Rúmil had taught her as they'd run through the woods. "Hiril vuin."

"Before your companions departed, I asked that they each spare a moment to indulge me presenting them with a token of solidarity from my realm," Galadriel said in her slow, calm way, her voice rising and falling like she was singing. "I ask the same of you."

Loena blustered, "my Lady, I could accept nothing from you. You have given me…" You have given me my life back, she wanted to stay, but the emotion kept her voice in check.

"And yet, accept it you must," Galadriel said calmly. "As you must accept the name we have found for you, as a sign that your kinship with this realm is absolute."

Elvellon? Loena wanted to ask. The name Haldir had given her. Perhaps that was more of a title, something that any men who wandered with the elves received. She dared not ask, intimidated by Galadriel's grace as she moved about her. Loena heard sleeves move, and hands on metal, then hands on metal once more. Her gift.

"I name you Anoriel, for your courage, and the gold of your hair," Galadriel said, softly. The name fell about Loena like autumn leaves. It tugged at something in her mind; the sudden image of a slow, summers day. A golden day, where the banners flew high, and the wind stirred the wheatgrass.

Galadriel pushed her hands forward, sleeves pushing against the air. Loena reached forward tentatively, and the elven Lady placed something delicate and light against her brow. "Elvellon of Lothlórien, I bestow unto you the circlet of Celebrían, daughter of this realm, and one whom I long to see. Celebrían lost sight of the beauty in the gold adorned upon her brow, I gift this, in the hope that you rediscover it."

Loena bowed, light-headed. She reached up to feel at the circlet, and felt the metal twisted in a waving pattern against her skin, interspersed with small ridges along the top, like the bridges of a crown. "La fael, hiril vuin."

Galadriel paid pause, and withdrew. Loena could hear her skirts pushing against the grass on the ground. "Before you leave, Loena, I would say this:

There are many mysteries of this world. Middle Earth is cunning; nothing is ever as it seems. I would give you this advice; do not be swayed by tradition. History preserves as much wrong as it does right." She withdrew completely now. She paused, as if contemplating, said; "we may see each other again, one day, though that hope is fast fading."

Loena reeled over Galadriel's advice, confused. What history concerned her? Perhaps the history of the one Ring, now that she had tied her fate to it? Or the history of the lost kings of Gondor, now that she left to seek its heir?

Perhaps her own history, brief as it was. Though there was nothing in it purposefully deceitful. She had been blessed with a childhood of honesty.

Her family's history? Do not be swayed by tradition.

Baldor and her line had been preserved, she supposed, though just barely.

She hesitated before leaving, she had just one more question of her Lady; "Galadriel, you once told me that when I no longer look upon my blindness as a curse, it will lift."

"I believe it can be restored. It is a punishment for rejecting the allure of Sauron's power, and it will lift when it is punishment no more."

Galadriel affirmed, "I did. And you told me that you would always see it as a curse. Is this no longer true?"

"I no longer fear the dark it brings," Loena said heartily. "I can move now, and be. I can fight."

"Ah, yes, you no longer fear it," Galadriel said, inclining her head. "But this is not the same thing. Do you hate it still?"

"It will always be a curse."

Loena remembered the anger she had felt when she had spat that. She searched her soul for it now, and with frustration, saw it sitting there, awaiting her. Slow, rolling anger. Cursed and unmarked, oath-breaker.

"I do."

"Then it shall remain," Galadriel said, voice sad.

Loena alighted Gwinig quickly. He was unsteady for a moment with a new person on top of him, but she kept her ground steadily. She knew fearing him now would have resulted in a difficult riding relationship. He needed to respect her as his new master, and she needed to prove to him that she would not balk and throw him off his course.

"Fly swiftly, Loena!" Galadriel called. "Nothing is certain, and so I will say; farewell, Anoriel, with all the blessings of this host behind you."

Fly they did. They raced the Anduin together, more one than two separate beings. Loena laughed with joy as she charged along on her horse. It had been many moons since she'd sat on the back of a strong steed, flying across the ground.

Gwinig was a clever horse, that much had become obvious immediately. He did not balk before running into a tree, as a more timid horse may have. Instead he strode confidently through the forest, leading himself along the bank when the need arose. Loena sensed this in him, and gave him the freedom he needed.

Riding bareback was near impossible. Loena felt herself sliding down and down every time she righted herself. And so at last she pulled herself forward and twisted her hands into Gwinig's mane, tucking her legs as tight against his side as she dared. He nickered in his irritation, but he made no attempt to slow down or throw her off.

"Goheno nin, Gwinig," Loena whispered to him as they ran, and she tightened her grip further.

He snorted in reply, and the muscles beneath her stretched tauter, and the body became warmer, and he laid upon another burst of speed.

Gwinig was not perfect, and often a branch would slap across her face. It cut against her skin, and the streaming cold of the wind would buffet against it, a stinging shrill keen against the side of her face. She'd duck her head against the neck of her horse and gasp through the first burst of pain, ignoring the settled throb that would take over a moment later.

She remembered Haldir's warning well, and listened carefully for orcs. With the wind streaming in her ears, and the air pushing all scent at her wayside, there was little to be discerned as they raced toward the fellowship.

As the repugnant stench hit her, however, she gasped, and pulled Gwinig into a halt.

He whinnied, rearing his front legs slightly as he shuddered to a stop, breathing hard.

She swung her legs around and dropped to the ground. It was soft beneath her boots, like the forest had been covered in a layer of autumn leaves. She knew the smell, its acrid scent had burned her nose before.

She turned her head around, desperate. There was the sound of Gwinig beside her, the sound of her own heart, and her own boots against the ground. There was sound in the trees; leaves moving, branches aching.

The breeze pushed the smell towards her again, and she nearly gagged on it. She could feel that it was ahead of her, and she concentrated with as much dedication as she could muster. The wind was not hitting her feet; it was protected by something just ahead of her. Something that might come up to her waist, or perhaps a bit lower.

She reached forward tentatively to touch it, but then recoiled in horror as the memory hit.

She had stumbled upon the sight of a burnt, dead orc.

It could not have been killed by one of her allies; they would have never killed just one and... yes, when she stepped forward, pressing down tentatively with her toes, she could feel just one body. Orcs never wandered alone, so it could not have been an elf from Lothlórien who had stumbled across it and waylaid its path. It had been killed, most likely, by its own kin, and had been left behind to rot.

They marched toward her friends.

Gasping and blocking her nose, and leant forward and briefly touched the body with her hand. Cool, but not cold. They would have set the fire and left it burning, and so were likely a day ahead of her.

Without delay, she set her mouth grimly and stumbled toward Gwinig. The horse moved toward her, and she hoisted herself up onto the horse's back.

"Menathab," she whispered to Gwinig. Haldir had said it often to his brothers and to Tavorel in the woods; let's go. "Menathab! Noro!" Run.

Gwinig stirred beneath her, and broke off into a gallop, making a small effort to clear the body of the dead orc in front of them, and thundered on through the forest. She had a new drive now, new desperation.

She had to warn them.


	17. The Steward's Son

Loena and Gwinig had circumvented the thundering boots of the approaching orc army as well as they could bear. From the sound of them, they had been huge hulking beasts, stamping across the forest floor with little regard for subtlety. Loena did not blame them, their numbers had terrified her. She would have been instantly overwhelmed if they had discovered her sneaking past them. They would have butchered Gwinig and eaten him over a fire.

Gwinig had had to be quiet, and cunning, in a way that horses are often not. But they had succeeded, and leapt forward before the Orc approach with a snapping ferocity.

Loena's heart pained her when it felt like a mere moment after escaping clear of the orc's, she heard the sound of a camp up ahead.

There was Sam's voice, snapping up through the forest, and then Pippin's voice, rolling and merry and teasing. They were too far away for her to hear, and despite the fear that sped her on toward them, her heart warmed at the sound. And she gasped as love for them fill her, strengthened her, renewed her tiring spirit. She had missed them, missed them fiercely.

"They are just ahead," she said to Gwinig, and despite it being the Common tongue, she could have sworn that the horse understood. "We are nearly there."

He pushed on through, slipping through the trees and bounding over the roots and ground. The voices became clearer and more distinct.

"…you shoulda kept your damn eyes on him, you foolhardy Took!" Sam was raging, voice floating up along the trees.

"I am not Frodo's keeper, Sam! None of us are!"

"Oh really? Cos I swore an oath, same as you, and if I recall, that was what the oath was!"

"Pippin!" Loena called ahead, unable to help herself.

The voices fell silent.

Then, Merry; "did that sound like-?"

Loena burst through the last trees, and pulled Gwinig to a stop. Out of breath, she dismounted quickly.

"Loena?" Pippin cried, and before she could say anything, he had thrown himself forward and tackled her into a hug.

He must have been looking up at her and gaping, because a thoroughly annoyed Sam said; "close your mouth, you look like more of a fool than you are."

"Sam," Merry snapped at him.

"Where is Frodo?" Loena asked, frazzled from the ride. "We must flee."

"We don't know," Merry said, before Sam could huff out an answer. "He and Boromir have disappeared somewhere—"

"Boromir—"

"We know," Merry cut her off. "Why do we need to flee?"

"A band of orcs storm toward you, hundreds strong," Loena said quickly, drawing her sword. "They are barely a moment behind me. Where is Aragorn? Gimli? Legolas?"

"We don't know that either," Pippin piped up. "They went to go find Frodo."

"Then we must find them, and warn them," Loena said grimly. "We must flee. We have no time. Merry, Pippin, head up through the forest, and Sam and I will cut around." She paused, taking in as much information around her as she could. "I hear steps and voices in both directions, though I know not who they belong to."

"You hear—"

"No time!" Loena interrupted them. "Go!" She turned to Sam, "Sam, is that Boromir's shield lying at the base of that tree?"

"It is," Sam affirmed.

"Pick it up, and take it with us," Loena ordered. "If there is to be battle, he will need it."

Sam was too surprised to demand any explanation, and she heard him track over the leaves and pick up the shield.

She turned to Gwinig, "Anduin, go!" The horse nickered, and flickered his ears, but he understood, and trotted off towards the sound of the rushing water.

"Come!" Loena called, and tracked up the land. It was hard going, and she had to concentrate as well as she could. She felt foolish and slow compared to how she had been on Gwinig. Still, Sam struggled to keep up with her.

"Do you not need me to lead you?" Sam asked between panting breath. "I only mean—"

"It is alright, master Hobbit," Loena said quickly, pushing off a tree and bounding across. The trees were clearing around her. "I have learnt much in the time we have been apart."

"Can you see—"

"No," Loena said sharply, but then, more considered. "But what I cannot see I know simply can know."

They burst out of the shadow, and the sun beat down upon Loena's head. She felt, a mere moment later, the rumbling of the orc army as it approached.

"They're here," Sam said, voice tight with fear.

Loena held Gíed before her, and turned with a snarl toward the screaming hoard. "Go, Sam. Find Frodo."

"But—"

"Go!"

If this was to be the reason that she had found the Fellowship again, then so be it. Here she would avenge herself, here she would sacrifice herself. The thundering came louder, and she began to hear the shouts.

"So it begins," she said to herself, and the first roars of the orcs who had spotted her slammed toward her.

Orcs were loud and brutish, and they were easy to fight in her condition. She could hear them all about her as they came for her, and she fought them all off easily. The sound, and smell, and the feel, it coalesced into her mind, pressed into her hand. She flipped her sword to catch a scimitar and rammed it into his neighbours neck, and then ducked a swing so that it would land in another of her attackers. She could predict the moves before they came, she could sense how they were going to swing before they had swung.

Gíed sung with their blood.

Some still pushed past her, but she was too overwhelmed to chase them. She noticed them anyway, and struck with more ferocity, determined to chase them.

But then a great, burning light filled her vision, and her eyes screamed with pain. She barely had enough awareness to dodge a strike from her right, and felt the blade cut into her arm. She fell back, and onto the ground, slamming her eyes shut and holding a hand over them.

The pain abated, and she swallowed, facing upwards, waiting for the final strike.

The twang of a bow snapped her into movement, and the sound of them burying into the flesh above her. She blearily tried her eyes again, and found that the whiteness had abated a little, and that she could make out vague images around her.

The pain became too intense again, and she snapped them shut, and pulled herself to her feet.

Another twang, and another orc fell. She wrenched up her sword and began to fight again, but this time, she pushed through the bodies and stumbled her way across the ground towards the archer.

"Legolas!" she cried in relief.

"My friend!" Legolas called back. "For a woman who cannot see, you fight very well."

She arrived at him, and grasped his forearm quickly in hello. "You are not the first to say so."

"Why do you keep your eyes closed?"

Instead of answering, Loena used the precious time they had remaining to sever the bottom of her elvish cloak with her sword, and use the bandage over her eyes. This time when she opened them, there was no pain, and all she could see was a fine world of grey.

See. She exhaled.

No time.

"Where are Aragorn and Gimli?"

"Fighting ahead of us—"

"And Boromir?"

"I know not, nor of Frodo either." Legolas pulled at her arm, as if to guide her. "Come, let us go find our friends."

Loena shook him off and led the way, listening out for the sound of Aragorn's sword and Gimli's axe.

"I tried to come in time to warn you," Loena explained as they ran, and she leapt over a fallen orc just before she tripped on it. "I fear I was too late."

"Too late to warn, perhaps, though not too late to help," Legolas said. "I must say, friend, you seem—"

"No longer cursed," Loena finished for him.

Legolas laughed a little, taken aback. "Those are not the words I would have spoken, though they are true. You seem unusually well."

It had been an evolution of the soul. Loena had revelled in her newfound power, in her new ability to exist with an almost exact understanding of the world around her. As soon as the feeling had entered her, the blindness had been cured.

And she had had to blind herself again to keep fighting.

Loena wanted to hurl her sword into the river at the irony.

They came upon the fighting a mere moment later, and Loena spared no time in waiting. She pushed at an orc clawing at Gimli and kicked it to the ground. She swung Gíed towards it, pushing back around quickly when it ducked out of the way. She turned and snapped back at another, raising her sword up through the centre of its chest, hot blood bursting out and coating her mask. She grimaced, and pulled the sword back out, kicking the corpse to the ground.

Beside her she heard Legolas's bow tang and snap.

"Loena!" he called, and she ducked, and an arrow fell into the chest of one who had been charging behind her.

She raced up the steps of the stone structure erected there. She felt her way as she went, pushing everything into the instincts she had spent so long perfecting. There she heard Aragorn fighting two foes, his sword fast and bright.

She charged forward, swinging at the closest one and missing by just an inch, drawing its attention. The orc turned to her and swung it scimitar widely at her. She ducked easily, and parried the next lazy strike. She pushed forward and swung hard, cleaving the orcs head off his shoulders.

Before her, Aragorn dispatched of his orc, and its body fell to the ground.

"How—" he said, surprise coating his words. "Have you retained your sight? Why do you mask your eyes—"

"I will tell you everything later," she promised him, and drew up beside him as fresh orcs pushed past Legolas and Gimli and ran for Aragorn. "Where is Frodo?"

"Gone," Aragorn said quickly, hurling a knife Loena had not known he had into an oncoming orc. Loena sliced through another, and Aragorn cut through the third.

"What do you mean, gone?" Loena demanded, sheathing Gíed smoothly and pulling out her bow. Loena gave herself a moment to pause, and listened out for the whoosh of air, and the gnash of teeth, spittle from lip, grunt from throat - She shot three arrows toward two orc quickly. One found its mark true, but the others did not. Aragorn slammed forward and cut the invading orc down.

"I let him go."

Loena swirled and ducked in between to orcs, slicing through one and then swinging back up through the other. With every roar they showed where her knife need strike, with every stir they told her where their arms were, their blades. With every gnash of their teeth and spittle and cry they told Gíed where it might find their throats.

She righted herself, and dead bodies fell to either side of her. "Let him go?"

"The path is set for Frodo alone," Aragorn said grimly, in the brief moment of peace in the skirmish. "The Fellowship has been broken."

Loena opened her mouth to retort, to snarl, but a great booming horn called out from the forest. It was a war horn, and one she had heard before. She inclined her head toward it. The sound of it was immense, like a great wave rolling up the land, brilliant and deadly as fire, as sunlight. And it was all the more deadening for its familiarity.

As they had first set off from Rivendell, Boromir had blown his horn to set them on their path.

"The horn of Gondor," Legolas confirmed for her.

"Boromir," Aragorn said, determined.

Loena was moving before she had had a chance to grapple with the circumstances. It took an immense recollection of how she'd climbed the stairs as she'd arrived to bound down them. Still as she landed, she placed herself quickly. The wind was faster, and swept up from which she faced. The ground sloped as she went to take a step. Downhill, facing the West.

Aragorn had met the pace of Legolas and Gimli, and charged on down, slashing through the invading orcs as they went. She hollered after them, following after their footsteps as she had with the elves in Lothlòrien.

The horn called again, and their urgency increased. The weight of Gíed burned Loena's shoulder, and she cried out in frustration as she slashed it through the air. She picked up her pace and found herself beside the heavy-breathing of Gimli, as Legolas and Aragorn charged ahead.

"Good to see you, lassie," Gimli grumbled beside her, as he pulled his axe from an orc's corpse.

"I missed you, master Dwarf," Loena said, flashing him a smile, and wiping a mop of sweat from her brow.

"Aragorn, go now!" Legolas demanded, releasing another arrow toward the approaching orcs.

"I will not leave you!"

"Boromir needs you," Loena insisted. She swung her sword back and heard the dull plop of a bead of blood falling from the end of her sword. "We will be fine!"

Aragorn did not hesitate for a moment longer, and barged on down through the trees. Some orc chased him, though Legolas spared a moment to shoot at them with his arrows.

Others began to scatter, now numbering far fewer. Loena pushed and pushed, her sweat coating the tie she'd placed around her eyes. It was slipping now, and light was seeping in. It was no longer painful for her to see, though she found no comfort in it.

She, Gimli and Legolas fought on, and on. The orcs were fleeing them now. Loena knew that she, Legolas and Gimli were not the targets. These orcs would not so willingly die to kill one of them.

She pushed forward, desperate for the end. She could hear only five more orcs, finally. She swung at one, and he parried her with his sword. She snarled and shifted back, tossing him off balance and swinging herself. He caught her sword, steel pressing hard against steel. She grit her teeth and kicked forward, crumpling his knee and sending him stumbling.

The orc roared forward in its anger, but she gave it no chance to raise its scimitar toward her again. She sliced forward, severing its throat.

He fell, and a great silence crashed in after. All the orc around them were dead.

"Boromir," Loena made out beneath her desperate gasps for air. She pulled forward, and with a roughness, stripped the bind over her eyes from her head.

She blinked in the light, but it no longer blinded her. She half stumbled, half ran through the forest, and Legolas and Gimli quickly overtook her.

She paused for just one moment, and looked around.

Trees, and green. And there, above her, in a blue she had nearly forgotten, the egg-shell sky. The beauty of it grasped her, and she felt it strong in her stomach. And about her, the soft wood of the trees that had been so kind to her fingers smiled down in reds and blues. And deep about her, the shadow of the forest cast itself long into piles of browning leaves.

And when she turned back, for barely a second, she saw how the sun swept across the grass ahead of her, catching it all in a blaze of glorious light.

Her breath caught, and tears gathered at her eyes.

Boromir and his plight was the only thing that urged her on; if not, she would have stood there for hours, staring at the trees around her. Memorising them. Every detail; every leaf, every bird.

With her sight, she found herself slightly disorientated as she made her way down the hill. Her instincts seemed to battle it, rather than help it. Eventually she worked enough back into the swing of it that she reached the base of the hill. She saw Gimli and Legolas ahead of her.

They had stopped.

She stopped beside them, and gasped, eyes filling with tears.

There lay Boromir, great captain of men, kind and loyal and true. Arrows pushed from his body, black, Aragorn knelt over him. His sword was on the ground behind him, cloven in two.

She pushed through, stumbling to Boromir's side just as Aragorn had pulled back from kissing him on the head.

"Boromir," she gasped, and he started, bleary eyes fluttering toward her. "Oh my…Boromir—"

"Do not…do not…" Boromir tried. "Loena, I am glad…you…" He swallowed. "I am glad you are here, now. I am glad to see your face, one last time."

Boromir, who would never see the walls of the city he had loved so dearly again. He would never see the brother he was so proud of, or the father he had been so carefully loyal to. He would never again raise his sword in triumph, or hoist his shield against the coming foe.

"Gondor…" he whispered. "Loena…"

"Rohan will not abandon Gondor," she said fiercely, tears tracking down her cheeks. She smothered a sob and leant forward, so close that her forehead brushed against his auburn hair. "I swear it, Boromir."

"Aragorn," he turned to the king, and Loena pulled herself away, falling back onto her hands, sitting raggedy in the dirt. She stood, hands shaking, and took another step back, eyes wide, unblinking, fixed on the scene before her.

"I do not know what strength is in my blood," Aragorn said softly, and keenly, and honestly. He gazed down at Boromir with the love of a brother. "But I swear to you, I will not let the White City fall." Boromir inhaled a shaky breath. "Nor our people fall."

Tears gathered in Loena's eyes again, and she suddenly, irrevocably, wished for blindness. She did not want to see this, she could not see this. She would not survive this.

She had seen men fall in battle. Good men, strong men. Men who had wives and children, and men who were barely graduated from childhood. Many had been her friends.

Each of their deaths had cut her deeply. Painfully.

This cut like those.

"Our people?" Boromir made out, with barely a whisper. There was a new, keen shine to his eye. "Our people."

With his last strength he reached down for his sword, but struggled for it. Aragorn held the hilt up to his chest quickly, and Boromir grasped it and held it there. He swallowed, ragged; "I would have followed you. My brother, my captain, my King."

"Be at peace, Captain of Gondor."

Aragorn leant forward and pressed his lips to Boromir's head. When he had pulled back, the last life of Boromir had drained onto the dirt. He closed his eyes, and did not open them again.

"No…" Loena stumbled forward, and pressed her hand at his cheek. Nothing. He was still warm. If it wasn't for the quietness of his veins and muscles and bones, he could have been sleeping. He should have been sleeping.

"They will look for his coming in the White Tower," Aragorn said softly, standing. He gazed upon Boromir with an ancient grief. "But he will not return."

Loena stroked his hair back from his face. Behind her, she had felt Legolas and Gimli approach.

She looked up at them, at all of them. She saw their faces for the first time in months. Legolas, fine of brow and ageless; Gimli, stout bearded with his kind, shrewd eyes, and then Aragorn, a near shorn beard about his cheeks, his dark, dirty hair framing his stern, noble face.

"I had come to warn you," Loena said, weakly. "He…he did not have his shield—"

"None are to blame, except our enemies," Aragorn said firmly.

"Come!" Legolas called. "We must lay him in a ship, and send him down this river. The Anduin will carry him safely home."

Loena watched as Legolas and Aragorn carefully picked up Boromir's body from where it had lain. Loena followed them feebly as they walked, clutching at the front of her cloak as they went. Gimli came and stood beside her, and together they grieved their fallen friend.

They came out to the river, and Loena sucked in her breath at its beauty. The shores were pebbled and white, and the water before her was clear, and precious. A little ways in front of her Gwinig drank at the water, and she realised for the first time that he bore a dark coat, and that he had a white sock on his back right leg. He looked up at her expectantly. She ducked her head, and he flicked his tale, turning back to drinking at the river.

Legolas pushed one of the small boats they had paddled down the Anduin on out onto the water, and Aragorn slowly lay Boromir into it. He was delicate, pushing his arms and legs in the right places. Loena came closer to see, and swallowed a great wave of grief.

She did not wish to see this. She wondered if she would go blind again if she were to look into the sun.

"We slept in the boats one night along the Anduin," Gimli said softly. "He would have looked just like this."

Without answer, Aragorn bent down and carefully slid Boromir's arm-guards off. He held them in his hands reverently, as though they were great, precious gems. Beside Boromir he placed his mighty sword, and the horn that he had blown.

Legolas and he pushed the boat into the water, and clambered back up onto shore.

The four of them watched as the small boat washed away down the current, bearing the body of their friend with it.

Behind Loena, Aragorn was settling the guards onto his arms, pulling tight on the straps. In front of her, Legolas gazed after the boat. Beside her, Gimli was staring hard at the ground in front of them. He was breathing hard, and slowly.

Loena touched the circlet at her brow with a quick and quiet reverence. He would come to the halls of his fathers, and he would drink and dine amongst them. He would ride his great stallion across the stars, and he would never tire.

The waters would bear him a safe passage.

* * *

_Thus ends the Shieldmaiden of Rohan! The sequel WILL be coming. I swear. I swear to all those weird gods Tolkien invented._  
_I swear on Tom Bombadil himself._

_It is called 'Protectress of the Horse Lords' and you'll be able to find a link to it on my profile._

_Thank you for everyone who read along - i hope you enjoyed it. I adored writing it, and I'm so glad I was able to share Loena with you all._


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